


Run From The Light

by TallysGreatestFan



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: A roadtrip in space, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode: s01e08 Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum, F/F, Klingon civilians, Klingons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 11:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallysGreatestFan/pseuds/TallysGreatestFan
Summary: L'Rell and Katrina Cornwell managed to escape from the Ship of the Dead, but Katrinas tightrope walk isn't over: She has to form a bond with L'Rell to be sure of her own safety, but she has to watch out to not become to invested in it to cloud her judgment. Will she manage it on their flight across Klingon territory?





	1. 1: Let Her Find Her Way To A Better Place

**1: Let Her Find a Way to a Better Place**

_Music:                  ,,Feral Love” – Chelsea Wolfe_

 

This would be a psychological tightrope walk, Admiral Katrina Cornwell knew. She forced her eyes open again und tried to chase away the heaviness that threatened to drown every one of her thoughts. Tried to built her plan further. Everything in her screamed to simply rest again, and even just keeping her eyes open was infinitely difficult, but probably she hadn’t much time left. Using all her strength left, she examined her surroundings once again. There were stars above and at the right and left and in front of her, only some glass-like material between them and her. An battered duffle bag and an metal bar with something on its front half that looked disturbingly lot like blood laid in the tiny space beside her seat and the glass wall, and half-dried stains of blood sprinkled the floor. And in front of her, at the other seat of what appeared to be some kind of… (she tried so hard to remember the ship class, but thinking was so exhausting…) space ship sat L’Rell.

Vague memories of the world leaping and spinning to the sides and up and down as if from fast movements ascended in her, one blurred image of a phaser cutting trough space just a few meters beside the small ship. But they seemed to have escaped whatever this had been.

Her eyes fell closed once again without her wanting to, yet she found the power to open them again only after a few seconds. But she didn’t know how long the Klingon would take to make sure that they had truly escaped, and she needed to be ready when she would face her. The more a person felt like an actual person and not just an object in their plans, the more they had a connection to them, the harder it would be for a capturer to injure or kill somebody. She had to form a bond with L’Rell. Show her information that made her seem more like an individual. And in return, letting her invest in her by answering to her questions and telling her parts about herself.

It would be a tightrope walk. Because with every information she gave L’Rell, she also made herself vulnerable. With every exchange, there was danger that she formed a bond with the Klingon interrogator that harmed her ability to think objectively. And as an professional interrogator, she would know very well about psychological manipulation mechanisms and would also be wary of giving away facts.

But her head hurt… Her eyes fell closed. This made no sense. She had to rest, only then she could prepare.

As she regained consciousness the next time, L’Rell was furiously trying to rub away something red from her face. At first, Katharina thought it would be blood – was all this blood here hers? – but then she realized that it was some kind of oily red paint. Here large, brownish-grey hands moved restlessly, hustling over the console in front of her, fumbling at some damage of her white armors spikes, rubbing over her face, entangling with each other. It was not extreme enough to be a Traumatic Stress Disorder syndrome, but still enough to show that L’Rell was greatly distressed. Disturbed. Something had happened to her. Had the others found out about her plan?

She was unsure if the Klingon woman trusted her already enough to try to comfort her, and after all she knew about Klingons her attempt to rescue her from her current state could as well be seen as humiliating her for her weakness. The best thing would be to leave her alone until she had put herself together a bit more.

Blinding pain shot trough Katrinas head again, and she couldn’t keep herself from whimpering. L’Rell flinched and turned in one fast, predatory movement.

Now her plan of leaving her to herself was canceled, obviously.

She smiled faintly and tried to look as peaceful as possible to show L’Rell that she wasn’t a treat. The other woman eased a bit but she was still very tense, back straigt, eyes wide, feet firmly on the ground so that she was just parts of seconds away from jumping into fight position.

,,Did we managed to chase them off?”, she could still not find a more subtle and proper question, for dizziness in her head.

,,Yes.”, L’Rell simply said.

Another wave of pain rushed trough the back of her head, and she touched it with her hands. Her hair was tangled, the skin underneath scratched and covered with dried blood.

,,Have you dragged me headfirst after you knocked me unconscious?”, she murmured.

,,I am sorry. I had to look as if I would dispose your body without caring about it in any way.”, she sounded truly pitiful and ashamed. It felt strange to hear a Klingon apologize for hurting someone.

,,And… all this blood… is that yours?”, yeah, such a psychologically brilliant and subtle question.

,,Mostly. They only broke my nose, and some other minor injuries.”

They fell back to not talking, Katrina staring out at the stars, L’Rell paying attention to her console.

,,What is with yours?”

She closed her eyes: ,,My head hurts. My back just tickles slightly, or I don’t feel it at all, and my legs feel like lifeless things stuck to my body. I can still move them, thought.”

She heard L’Rell leap to her feet, and despite she seemed strangely congenially to her, almost a calming presence with her well thought statements, she felt panic shot trough her.  But she just seemed wanting to take her armor of.

Oh god, hopefully she wore something underneath it. After this shit of a day, she truly didn’t wanted to see _that_ as well. But her fear was baseless. After she lied the armor on the floor carefully, and took of her space suit boots off as well, she stood there wearing an high-waisted military-style trouser satchel once flat enough to be worn underneath clothing but now baggy with the things stuffed into them, and a rough-weaved shirt, soaked with sweat and blood, shoved into it, probably some kind of high-tech padding for her armor. She was thinner than Katrina had expected, but still muscular and heavy, with broad shoulders and broad hips.

She grabbed in the pockets and pulled out its content. Several pieces of materialistic jewelry, dressing material, packs of rations and water, some Klingon data storage units and, to Katrinas surprise, a Starfleet data crystal were lowered to the floor. The realization how damn sly this woman was hit Katrina in awe.

,,Did wear this underneath your armor the whole time?”

,,I expected that I am in danger on this ship since I am a threat to Kol, and he isn’t foolish enough to miss that. And he…”, her voice broke. Something flickered in her eyes, helpless hate and sorrow so deep that it threatened to swallow her. ,,he showed me clearly how less welcome I am on the Ship of the Death now.”

And suddenly, she realized how defeated L’Rell looked. It hurt seeing the proud warrioress like this, so small and to vulnerable. What had happened to her? But it was still to early to ask. The relationship they had was still to superficial, and her wounds were to fresh. Asking her now could provoke any kind of reaction, completely unpredictable.

Needing more information to know in what kind of a situation she was, Katrina asked:  ,,What kind of ship is this? How well are we now?”

,,This is one of the ships fast movers. I couldn’t make it to my own shuttle in time, I almost couldn’t make it to this one, even. I predicted that I would have to flee soon. But most of the supplies I prepared are in my own shuttle. We have water for only two days and only a few rations of food.”

,,Which means that we need to take supplies somewhere.”

L’Rell nodded.

,,How many resources will they use to hunt us?”

Something dark loomed in L’Rells eyes again. ,,To see me dead will have priority to Kol. But his house controls only parts of our territory, and I know how to avoid them. And he can’t sent large portions of his forces after us or sent orders to hand me over to allied houses since he would show how dangerous I am and how weak he is then. Still, his army will be on every planet and their ships will search space for us. This vessel was created for short term fights, so it has good shields and weapons, and under light-speed, it is very fast and swift. But it wasn’t meant for long distances. Its warp core overloads when it is used longer than an day used at full speed, and there is not enough oxygen. And it was meant to fight in a formation, not alone. Alone, every other warship outweapons us.”

,,So we have to bypass them. Do you know if there are any tactics for such a case Kol would standard-use? Anything of how he deals with threats like you, how he plans?”

If you knew how your enemy thought, it was much easyer to predict how they would strike, and to understand how to fight them.

,,He will order every warrior of his house to capture and kill me if they find me, and in the spaces House Kor controls, he will sent out battleships for me, and search the routes I will most likely take. He does not know where I will head, thought.”

,,And what would he believe is most likely?”

,,That I would flee to Mokai-controlled space near the Rihannsu border. Or to some of their bases in the empire. House T’Kuvmas power was only linked to the Ship of the Dead, the territory they control is mostly radioactive polluted wasteland on Kronos. And he knows that I wouldn’t be so foolish to flee to Kronos. We will preempt this places.”

Automatically, after years as Captain and Admiral, Katrina estimated actions, tried to find strategies. Not easy when you were in the middle of the unknown territory of an hostile enemy.

She looked at the console in front of her. It was lettered in Klingonese, and even when she could understand something of the language when spoken, she could not read it. It took her a long time to find out how the console worked. It had been the weapon control of the ship, but L’Rell had (of course) blocked the controls, so that she could only use the sensor control.

,,What resources do we have?”

L’Rell sighed: ,,I had to improvise, and most of the food, water and first-aid-medicals is on my shuttle. We have water for two days, the space suit that I am wearing, items that could be used as payment I managed to smuggle out and the spare parts that are standardely carried along in our fast movers.”

,,Shit.”, Katrina murmured, ,,We need to take supplies somewhere, there is absolutely no other way.”

,,Ihmm”, nodded L’Rell, ,,But every stronghold of my House is further away than five days.”

After that, they both devoted themselves to their consoles. Katrina only looked up again as she heard the Klingon move in front of her.

L’Rell had got up, and approached her.

The pure power in her movements, her sharp facial features and the tension of her muscles screamed nothing than threat. It even increased as L’Rell pushed something in direction of her head. She wanted to flee, but her body felt far to shaky to move.

,,Hold still”, a large, clawed hand grabbed her head and now she was ready to scream.

,,Drink”, something hard touched her lips, and the Klingon instilled water in her almost tenderly.

,,Better?”, she hadn’t got clean water to drink since she had been captured. It felt so good, and maybe she was just imagining this, but was her headache becoming a bit better?

,,A bit.”

,,You have to rest. You seem to be rather robust for somebody of your species”, was that a smirk on her scarred lips?, ,,but even you should rest after an massive head injury, and electric shock”

She pointed at the duffle back. ,,There is a sleeping bag inside.”

Katrina tried to got up, and her legs sag under her. Instantly, L’Rell was at her side, and helped her to stumble the few centimeters to the duffle bag. She carried her rather that Katrina walked herself. It wasn’t until L’Rell sat in the pilots chair again that Katrina realized how less threatening the Klingons touch had felt like. The opposite, it had almost felt comforting.

It was already exhausting simply to sit there and open the bag, pulling the sleeping bag out and spread it on the floor. The fabric of the bag felt worn out and though, and the one of the sleeping bag no less. Dead insects fell on the floor as Katrina opened it out.

,,Is it not comfortable enough for you, human?”, suddenly, L’Rell sounded hurt, well hidden underneath her aggressive hiss. Whom had this sleeping bag belonged to, that it was such an sensitive topic for her?

,,No. It is absolutely enough. Thank… thank you”, her voice almost broke down. She didn’t know if she thanked her for the sleeping bag or simply for carrying her out of the ship and saving her live.

She huddled into the sleeping bag, lying on her belly because she had learned on long survival trips back then in her cadets training that that was the least uncomfortable position when sleeping directly on the hard floor. The bag smelled after torch smoke and recycled air and old books, and just a tad like sweat and an strange foreign earthy scent. Was that how Klingons smelled like? She wondered how humans would smell for them.

Even lying in the sleeping bag, the world wouldn’t stop spinning and shaking, and soon, Katrina sunk into deep sleep.

 

She awoke from terrible racket. Someone was roaring their lungs out in a language that sounded as if somebody would read Shakespear in Arabic while vomiting, and as if this wouldn’t have been awful enough, it was accompanied by the scream of bursting metal. Katrina took a moment before she realized that this was supposed to be Klingon music. She had thought that maybe, the language sounded not so terrible when sung, but this suspicion seemed to be wrong.

L’Rell must have heard her startling, because she turned her head and asked: ,,How do you like it?”

,,It is really powerful and strong. I find it sounds interesting.”, she said diplomatically.

,,No, you don’t”, L’Rell said. Katrina could hear the smirk in her voice, ,,No non-native speaker ever would think that Klingonese sounds somewhere even remotely close to ,good’.”

,,Well, you are probably right.”, Katrina gave in.

L’Rell chuckled. It was strange hearing your former enemy laugh.

,,What languages sound terrible for you, then?”

,,Betazoid. Chinese. Jao’gii. French.”, she spat out the last word with disgust, ,,They all mumble the words so extremely that they blurry to one single, sticky, disgustingly soft mess that gums up your ears. And French, it always sounds extremly snootly, and as if their noses were stuffed. It is awful.”

,,An interesting point of view. Now I’m wondering what languages you actually like, in turn.”

,,I like how clear and precise Vulcan sounds. Then there is this human language of – how was this country called that was the second superpower for most of the 20th century?”

,,Russia.”

,,Russian. So wonderfully heavy and definite. And German. Maybe that is because of what every other human says about German just like what they say about Klingonese, that it sounds like a mix of ,ch’ and ,rr’ and grunts and sharp vowels.  But for me, it sounds wonderful. I am fascinated by how detailed one can describe processes in this language, and everything sounds precise and high-tech in it.”

,,I never realized this.”, Katrina reflected over the last time she had heard german. The chief secretary of her staff was half-andorian from the north of the planet, and half german-born-trill. Yes, she did indeed have an very precise way of articulate herself. If she would ever see her again?

Katrina tried to sit up, but then the world started spinning again, and she lied down again, and closed her eyes. For the rest of the day, she dozed of and awakened, watched the foreigen stars and L’Rell helming the ship towards Federation territory, and dose of again. She was thirsty and hungry, but she knew that they had hardly any supplies, and so she simply closed her eyes again, and after a while, the feeling always subsided.

 

The emptiness in her stomach was still there as she awoke, and L’Rell still sat in front of her console. As Katrina stumbled her way to the seat behind her, holding onto the transparent walls of the fast mover – it didn’t seemed beautiful or ethereal to her that she could see space ascending all around her, it just seemed fragile and deadly, a reminder that behind this few centimeters of material there was just vacuum for lightyears – she turned her head.

She looked tired, her eyes half closed and unfocused, but she seemed to get just a little bit more awake as she saw that Katrina had gotten up. She was clicking trough some sensor data, Katrina realized, sitting on the OPS-console she had occupied before. The ship flew with auto pilot.

As she walked past her and sat down at the navigation-and-shield-console, she saw that the data were transmissions from all around them, from every kind of subspace transmissions to coded warp-signatures until lightspeed-fast-signals for within solar systems or ships of one formation.

Something in Klingon was played over the audio systems. Then L’Rell flipped her fingers, and the sound vanished and text spun over the screen.

Katrina stared at it, trying to understand it, but even if she was something close to being able to understand spoken Klingonese, she couldn’t read it.

L’Rell changed channel again, and suddenly, a harsh, precise, pleasantly-sounding language filled the air, and familiar letters flashed over the screen.

Automatically, the sounds and patterns formed their English equivalents in her head, and she wondered how _they_ would manage to have ships here. She understood single words or fragments of sentences, but overall, they didn’t made any sense.

,,What is this?”, she asked, ,,It sounds and looks very much like Vulcan. How can they sent transmissions in this territory?”

L’Rell smiled slyly, now seemingly fully awake: ,,That is because they are closely related to the Vulcans. They have their pointy ears and bowl-cuts and gorgeous sharp and elegant features and bodies, and olive-brown skin. Seems like their languages are related too. I would die to know _what_ exactly they are sending.”

,,They?” Why didn’t she knew about those almost-Vulcans?  Yes, the Vulcan High Council had an history of doing things on their own and withholding information from the humans, but she had thought that in this war it would be only logical to share everything they knew.

,,The Rihannssu. We are getting close to their territory.”

,,Rihannsu?”, she asked skeptically.

,,You must know them.”, L’Rell turned in her seat, ,,They are one of the five major powers in this quadrant, surly the Federation must had dealings with them in the past.”

Katrina tried to remind everything she might know about an major player of Vulcan descent, yet she found nothing.

,,It could be that this wasn’t the case until a long time ago, though. They are not exactly open for other peoples, especially not if they could threaten them. We developed space fare at almost the same time as them, and yet we never actually had trade relations to them. Not even to talk about cultural exchange or friendship. For the most time, they ignore us, and we ignore them, and built our borders to fortresses. Sometimes we struggle for domination over each other.”

And now Katrina realized. The notion that Federation might had contact with them only a long time ago and that they ignored other powers for the most time made her realize that she was talking about the Romulans.

,,Do you mean the Romulans? We had an war against them roughly hundred years ago and then nothing.”

,,Romulans? That is what Federation calls them, isn’t it? I heard that they find that offensive, as if they would have built their empire on an old earth civilization, not from their own unity.”

,,Maybe it is.”, she shrugged, ,,You speak their language?”

,,I am fluent in both their language and their writing system. House Mokai has a history of loose alliance with the Rihannsu, and they were indeed the first aliens I had contact with.”

,,Hmn?”, Katrina asked. Whatever she would tell her now, she had to look as if this was nothing new for her, L’Rell must never know how less Federation truly knew about the Romulans, ,,I can’t even remember seeing someone who wasn’t of my species for the first time, it is difficult for me to imagine how this must be.”

,,Federation…”

,,And you ended up having contact with them due your houses and their diplomatic relations?”

There the sly smile was again: ,,One could… paraphrase it like this. I worked in an institute for our culture, mostly tending the library there.” So she had played an friendly tourist guide to her culture while she had been looking out about for useful secrets and rumors.

,,I was quite young then, away from my Houses territory for the first time. And it was an complete culture shock. The Rihannsu are quite the opposite to us, even compared with Mokai which isn’t the typical example of our culture – but I wasn’t aware of that back then. Their unity and loyality to their state is everything for them. They are sly and quiet where we are straightforward and loud. What shocked me the most was simply waiting for a shuttle or sitting in a café or something and reading, though. On Qu’Onos, everywhere you are, you hear that you are surrounded by people. You hear them shout, laugh, scream, howl, talk, argue, fight. They quarrel about the food they bought at they street booth or how aggressively they flew, the talk about their last drinking session and their everyday live, they run, making loud stamps with their heavy shoos, because they are late. Everywhere is noise. And if it isn’t peoples noise, you hear Targs howl, or the sound of machines, or the rush of storms. If your neighbors are to loud, you don’t try to hide from their noise as Rihannsu or Federation people would do, you create counter noise; smack you broom against the ceiling or turn your TV louder.

On Rihannsu-planets, everything is quite. I sat there, didn’t seeing the people around me because I was reading, and it seemed as if I was the only person on the planet. I looked up and they were right there, undergoing their everyday life. But as I lowered my head again into my book, I could not hear them. They hustled perfectly quite trough the streets. On Qu’Onos, it was as if civilization would gave a reply that it is there even if I’m not looking, but here… It was unnerving.”

Katrina smiled: ,,I still remember my first time of being on another planet. I was only a child, travelling with my parents to Vulcan. I don’t have many memories about it. Just how terribly hot it was, and that I was waiting for the next time I would got something do drink or there would be a opportunity to cool myself in the water or go into a acclimatized room.”

,,Vulcan has an extremely hot climate, they say.”

,,Oh, absolutely! And I was always wondering why the other peoples faces always looked the same, why their facial expressions were missing. I must have been very annoying for the Vulcans with my childish defiance.”, she laughed a bit to nervous.

,,I would like to visit Vulcan if there were not be war between our people.”, L’Rell said after several moments, ,,It sounds quite interesting, from all one hears.”

Desperate to keep the conversation going, and also have an harmless topic, Katrina asked: ,,What else did astonish you on Romulus?”

The other woman needed a moment to answer, and Katrina noticed that her eyes were half shut again. Had she actually slept?

,,I wasn’t on Romulus. I was only on some of their border worlds. We had peace with them back then, but they would have never trusted a Klingon enough to let them even close to their homeworld. No one but high-ranking politicians, anyway. Unlike our rather federal, if hierarchic organization structure, they have  an centralistic governance machinery, which makes them an extremely dangerous enemy, but also vulnerably at this particular point.

It is fascinating how much about ones own species one only understands after one lives among aliens for a time. I remember that I thought, it would be typically Klingon to be sly and thoughtfull, because that were the traits of my house.”

Katrina couldn’t help but grin at that, and hoped that she would not see it.

,,How wrong my perception of my own people was. I had hardly any contact to persons who were not either Mokai or House T’Kuvma, and both of them have a lifestyle that is in no way representative for the vast majority of our species.”

In which way did they differ? But it was most likely a still to intimate topic to ask about that, and so she kept quite.

,,The Rihannsu are quite pleasant people if they do not happen to fight against you or cover you in xenophobic mistrust because they are afraid. They don’t tamper with your business and quietly go on with their affairs, don’t burden you with their plans, they are loyal to their friends and allies but without rushing into senseless fights for them, they are unobtrusive and controlled. In many ways they share traits with people of my mothers House, maybe that is why I was always fascinated by them. “

,,I remember getting into deeper contact with people of a foreign species for the first time.”, it wasn’t exactly an neutral or harmless topic, but it was one that could show her valuable information about L’Rells past and worldview, or at least about the Klingon Empires relations to other peoples, and so she had to keep their conversation going. ,,I had just finished my studies, and thought, naïve as I was, that I could apply everything I learned at non-humans too. I tried to help a Trill who had panic attacks every time she was challenged with an new exercise at her ship, and I simply couldn’t understand why the strategies they had taught me wouldn’t work at her. Later, I found out that in Trill society, it is an ideal to become an so called ,joined’, which means that they join with an symbiont that also carries the memories of past lives with it, and for which they need a quite high abilities because it is a thing only a small elite does. Now, everybody in her family was joined and she was scared to be not good enough to be it, too, one day. A fairly obvious reason, but I was still to single-minded to think alien psyches could work different than humans because their societies differ.”

,,It gives you a whole new perspective.”, L’Rell repeated, and Katrina already thought the conversation was over, as she continued: ,,They have a quite… interesting take on gender and sexuality.” There was a soft, approving growl in her words as she said that, and somehow, it felt more threatening than as if she would have pointed a knife at her.

,,Also, one learns to listen to what people not say rather than what they say over time. An Euphemism here or careful silence there. Paraphrases that mean the opposite of what they say or these or that look can mean a difference between being an dissident and being an free citizen there. In my two years there, I witnessed at least three people disappearing randomly, and the thing I could not understand back then was how their bereaved didn’t seek revenge or tried to mobilize their clans and allies for finding their loved ones and fighting whoever did this, but that they just continued as if these people had never existed or would simply have melt into thin air.”

,,They have such an extreme police- and surveillance-state there? And you were never threatened as a foreigner?”

,,Oh, I was. Two years after I started my service their, a …friend of mine showed me silently that they wanted to talk to me in private. I thought I had missed their birthday or accidentally offended somebody with not knowing enough about their culture, but they said that they had heard from a colleague that there had been an putsch at the Rihannsu centralistic government, that a more militant praetor had taken over, and that after tomorrow, every Klingon still on their territory would be imprisoned – and that usually means torture or death there. I never forget the look in their eyes. Their pure desperate resignation.

In hindsight, my flight was something that made me understand their culture and my own much more, too. I remember vividly how I threw everything that mattered to me in my duffle bag, how I rushed down the forest behind the town towards the space port, the hammering of my own footsteps and my racing heart ringing in my ears, hot air playing around my face. I didn’t even realize in this moment how much faster and lesser exhausting it would have been to simply take the subway.

As I arrived, their were already fights going on. It was a very surreal scene. There was this iceman, and in front of his booth there were half a dozen Klingons and some Rihannsu and other aliens as well beating each other up. And he simply stared over this mess with his eyes glassy with fear, and announced what sorts of ice he was selling, screaming to be heard over the clamor they made.

I run over the whole facility and back. Finally got in a fight over one ticket with another Klingon, an Nausician and an tiny Vulcan.

I won quite easily against the other woman, she was just a brainless brute. Beating the Nausician was a lot more difficult. But I managed to, bleeding on my face and limping from a wound at my hip afterwards. Now, there was only the Vulcan standing. He had stayed out, cowardience, foolish me thought. He was tiny and petite; at least two heads shorter than I, and quite pleasant to look at, as Rihannsu-related species generally are. He looked as if he would break after the slightest touch of me. I prepared to knock him out, stroke my blow – and suddenly his feet was in my face and then his elbow in my gut and his hand against my neck, with an force that made me actually faint.”

,,Never underestimate an Vulcans ability to fight…”, Katrina muttered, ,,They may not see it as a way to harm others, but simply as active meditation, but most of them still practice it from their childhood on, and they are a lot stronger than one would expect from their lean, slender frame.”

,,That explains a lot.”

,,How do you got away?”

,,I blackmailed an cargo freighter captain with what I found out in a seemingly panicked, meaningless dialog with him of what he really did when he said his family that he would be go fishing. The ship didn’t brought me back to Mokai territory, but at least away from Rihannsu-space, and from where I landed I could take on jobs on ships and work my way back home.”

Katrina listened carefully, trying to imagine everything down to the detail. A shape of how L’Rell was started forming in her head.

 

They didn’t talked again at this day, and just like the other, Katrina slept or rested most of the time. She had a strange dream in which her whole life until now turned out to be a dream, and she was in some kind of afterlife that was a mix of Vulcan and Christian mythology, and Gabriel was with her, and Philippa was still alive and there had been an easy solution for the war, everything was alright again.

She awoke startled and confused, somewhat dashed that she was still alive. To disturbed to sleep further, she sat up – to fast, her vision began to blurry again – and finally stood up with infinite slowness, stumbling her way towards the other console.

The stars looked completely different from when she had last saw them. Were they already more than two days in here?

She was already half on her way as she realized that L’Rell had dozed of. She sat slouched against her seat, hands still on the controls, her head fallen to the side. Quickly, Katrina looked if they were still on the right course and hadn’t crashed into something while their pilot was asleep. And then she took the other womans shoulders and shook.

She awoke as if someone would have flicked a switch, at one second she was sleeping, at the other she was fully awake.

Katrina only had time to see those unsettling electric blue eyes flew open, and then she was already pushed against the glass cladding of the Shuttel, an underarm pressed against her throat, so tight that she wasn’t able to breath anymore. She only managed to let out an strangled shriek.

No, she wouldn’t kill her, wouldn’t she? She was her only chance to get to the Federation without being harmed, and intelligent as she was, L’Rell must know that, she could not kill her. But she hold her there with brutal force, no chance for Katrina to escape, and panic shot trough her heart.

And then L’Rell let her arm sink finally, and Katrina stumbled away, coughing.

,,I am sorry.”

,,Don’t… do that…again!”, Katrina managed to say, and made a mental note to never  startle the Klingon again.

Since she needed to sit down and the sleeping bag was not an opinion because it was to far away, she sank down onto the other seat.

,,And I could take piloting for six or eight hours, so that you could sleep.”

,,I won’t let you have control over this fast mover. How could I tell that you not betray me and fly straight to Kol because you think you would have better chances to survive with him?”

,,That is true. But as I know you, you have established blocks over all vital systems anyways, so even if I wanted, I couldn’t deceive your plans.”

,,Blocks can be overwritten.”

,,Yes, but I’m quite sure you have checked every aviable data about my carrer? Did you see what kind of science my expert field is, and how less it has to do with technology?”

,,Yes.”, L’Rell looked even more tired than yesterday. Her eyes were red and threatened to fall closed at any moment, and she was so exhausted that she actually mumbled slightly. No wonder, she must have been awake for more than forty-eight hours by now.

,,You are a psychologist.”

,,I am. It has hardly anything to do with technology or informatics, and furthermore you are so exhausted that you fell asleep without wanting it just a few moments ago.”, pointing that out was risky, but from all she knew of her, L’Rell didn’t seemed like a person who would turn aggressive very fast, contradictory to what she thought she had known about her species.

,,Hmm.”, she grunted. She hardly seemed furious. In fact, she seemed to had to concentrate just to follow their conversation.

,,How good would your chances be if Kols army finds you in that condition? Don’t you think it would be lesser risky to leave the non-critical systems of this ship to me while you get the sleep you need?”

,,Try to use your rhetorical questions on somebody else. I protect myself, and I can stay awake, human.”

Katrina shrugged, playing to give in: ,,If you think so… I don’t know your species physiology that well, maybe you can pull up something like that and really don’t harm yourself and others. You yourself must know that the best.”

L’Rell stared into the air for a few moments, hardly still awake. Then she mumbled: ,,You have the helm, human.”

And then she stumbled towards the sleeping bag and snuggled in it. The careful, almost tender way she touched it, and how she clung to it, showed even more clearly that it must have some personal importance to her. It took her hardly a minute, then she was sleeping peacefully and deeply.

 


	2. You Don't Bring a Disruptor To a Bar fight

,,We’re heading  in opposite direction to the Federation border.”, Katrina examined the map once more.

,,I know. It should be like this.”, L’Rell pointed at the hologram of the planet once more, ,,Hw’Sjaros lies on House Mogh territory. They are not very big and stay out of the fights between the houses for most parts. I never heard of this planet before, but this shows only more that it has neither military nor cultural importance. That means that Kol won’t have his armies there, at least not if we land in an rather small town. A whole planet is just too big.”

,,But you are not exactly unobtrusive with the scar on your face.”

She smiled, and it looked just as dangerous as her usual expression, ,,I want to lay a false trail for Kol.”

Of course. It had been so obvious. Now Katrina felt very foolish.

They were silent for some time, and L’Rell got up and emptied the duffle bag at the floor. Only a battered book, two big metal bottles, something that looked just like an Starfleet mess kit, just a lot more dented, and an flashlight clanked down.

Something at Katrinas console flashed.

,,Incoming Transmission.”

,,,Put it trough!”

From the little Katrina understand, it was the flight control of the planet, and L’Rell had a brief dialogue with them, and then piloted the fast mover trough the atmosphere.

It was a beauty Katrina hasn’t expected on this flight, and one she wasn’t prepared for.

Clouds hung over the greenish and brown landscapes, looking like a white liquid half-mingled in water and lying on a invisible surface. They looked soft and mystical, as if there could truly be higher beings living here like in the old earth religions. She could see it all trough the transparent walls of the fast mover, it was almost as if she would fly herself, standing directly in the sky.

It looked so much like earth that Katrina could hardly held back an pain filled sigh.

White mist against the glass as they flow trough the first layer of clouds, now hovering between the blurred higher clouds and the much more material looking lower ones.

L’Rell flow after what the sensors told her, holding onto a small town somewhere in the temperate zone.

The patchwork-blanket like ground became fields and flat agricultural buildings and then turned to single plants grouped to fields. Over something that looked quite like maize, L’Rell throttled the engines of the fast mover and lowered it slowly to the ground, steamrolling several of the plants.

She touched a panel on her consol, and one of the Shuttle walls opened. Katrina huddled outside, and couldn’t help but smile at being finally outside a spacecraft again. Cold, clear air hit her face. The pale light of a winters sun hidden behind clouds shone in her eyes, so that she had to look in another direction. From where she was standing half-out of the shuttles ramp, she could see over plants and plants and the beginning of another field, and another, up to the horizon. It seemed almost surreal to her, that there wasn’t a wall between her and this distances. How long had it been since she have had so much space that wasn’t the vacuum between stars?

The cold air sent a chill down her arms, but it was a good feeling, finally some distinct temperature again after the always same slightly-to-warm-but-okay on Klingon ships.

L’Rell left the shuttle, too, and even if she chased away that expression fairly fast, Katrina didn’t miss how she cherished the free air, too. Then she forced her eyes away from the wideness and to the next plant. She walked to it and grabbed one of the fruits. It was a long, pointy pod covered in fibrous, brownish blue leaves.

,,One can eat them uncooked when they are young. They taste quite good, probably even for you, human, and they won’t rott for several months.”

She poded the leaves of and devoured the vegetable. Remineded at how empty her stomach felt like, Katrina grabbed the next pod and did the same.

,,You have to take the ones that are still blue, otherwise they are too old.”

Katrina stared at the leaves of hers, then bit in it. And it tasted indeed not that bad, like walnut and spelt with an slightly irritating earthy taste in the aftermath.

,,Pick as much as you can. We don’t know when or if we are able to get good food for the next time.”, said L’Rell and carried several other pods in the ship. Katrina did the same.

Only as there was a pile of alien-maize, L’Rell grabbed the bottles, threw them in the duffle bag, took her metal bar and paced towards the end of the field.

By now, the coolness felt no longer refreshing, but painful, and Katrina was torn between longing for a warm shop and fear of walking into a Klingon village.

,,You have to cover your ears and forehead.”, said L’Rell, ,,We conquered enough human-looking species to that it won’t make them suspicious.”

Katrina shrugged, and then ripped an long stripe of her jacket away and bound it around her head. And as much as her fingernails hurt from scratching off the little Starfleet-deltas, she still felt like her clothes resembled an uniform to much.

,,The shirt you wear underneath your armor. Can you take it of and give it to me?”

L’Rells expression was just as weirded out as she would have looked had she asked her something like this, and with a smirk and an light growl she mumbled: ,,Want to see me undress, human?”

Katrina had to do her best not to gulp and stay just as dangerously close to her as she had before.

,,The hell, noooh?! My clothes look too much like Starfleet. You can have my jacket if it fits.”, she hissed.

She forced herself to go back into the shuttle with her, but some minutes later she actually did wear the rough shirt. It was too wide for her, and the fabric felt soft from being used to much. It was even more cold than her jacket, but at least she didn’t looked like a shield screaming ,,HUMAN” anymore.

 

The town consisted only of some storehouses and cattle sheds, and some scattered houses.

It was an fascinating experience to actually see where Klingons lived, not just their war cruisers and ground battlements. Their architecture struck her as something in between Italian and traditional Burkina Faso houses; simple, relatively low buildings in earthy colors with flat roofs and small, long windows, pragmatic and stable. They looked surprisingly low-tech for an civilization this advanced, but then, maybe it was wiser to built your houses so that they still worked even when your enemy destroyed the energy hubs.

They walked trough the whole village, but there didn’t seemed to be any supermarket or the klingon equivalent to one anywhere. Finally, they stopped in front of the only pub, and with a shrug, L’Rell went inside. Whoa, good to be finally out of this painful coldness.

It looked like an absolutely ordinary pub one would expect in a small village, just with Klingons instead of Federation-species sitting in the battered wooden chairs and battle paintings instead of ones of happy feasts hanging at the rough walls. The people seemed just as ordinary, too. They seemed like figures of the same playground, well knowing each of their moves and possible actions so that everything they did became just everyday life for the others. Two older women sitting in a corner, just drinking along each other. Several men laughing at something. A guy leaning over a table with two others. A drunken woman very obviously trying to flirt with a man who was just as obviously for everybody but her repulsed by it.

She and L’Rell were obviously an not fitting element in this, and there were two ways the others could react. The could completely ignore them because they were not part of their strange well practiced world, or they could see them as invaders, and be hostile to them, watching everything they did closely to decide when to attack.

However, nothing of this happened.  They stared and whispered for a moment, but then they looked away again markedly not caring. Only an young man found the courage to approach them, obviously nervous but equally curious.

He said something Katrina did not understand. Only now Katrina painfully realized that her Klingonese was far too bad to be even remotely close to ,,able to have a conversation”, and that she couldn’t talk English with L’Rell because she would have showed herself as  a human then.

L’Rell hissed something in her mother tongue and the guy took a step backwards and disappeared fastly.

,,Idiots.”, L’Rell said in what Katrina first thought to be Vulcan with an terrible accent, ,,Most of them probably never saw an alien before.”

,,Is that ordinary?”, she asked back in Vulcan.

,,For non-warriors, oh yes. Is it for Federation-people?”

,,Not really.”, it felt as if she would loudly say ,,Look, I’m human and from your enemies!” to talk about such things in the middle of a bar.

L’Rell sat down on a jagged chair in front of the bar and belted something that seemed to be the name of a drink.

The bartender handed her something red in an not exactly clean mug. Then he asked Katrina something.

,,Huh?”

,,He asks you what you want to drink.”

,,Water.”, her knowledge was just enough to say that.

The man replied something.

,,What?”

L’Rell grinned slightly: ,,He says that water is for the Targs. They have bloodwine and Rihannsu ale.”

,,Rihannsu ale”

The bartender disappeared and came back with a glass full of a blue liqid.

Feeling the liquid bathed her mouth was just wonderful after haven’t drunken for over an day, and she cherished the sensation. The glass was empty far to fast.

As they ate what L’Rell had ordered, Katrina continued to survile the guests. The women were still talking. An absolutely unobtrusive man except for the disruptor his hands calmingly fiddled with entered the bar and sat down in a corner. How much a live must have been shaped by violence that people had to carry weapons with them?

She heard L’Rell ask the bartender something, a short dialogue begun. Finally, the bartender muttered something that sounded like an rejection, and L’Rell signed.

,,So far to ,we’ll find another way easily’, huh?”

L’Rell just stared at her annoyed.

,,Are there any specific cultural peculiarities concerning buying something?”

,,What are you planning? You are not able to speak our language.”

,,Why did he let you down?”

,,He said that they can’t just give strangers their stock, especially not if they don’t even have money, but just valuables.”

,,Is it appropriate here to bargain?”

,,For something like this, yes.”

,,Say him that we don’t need to buy our supplies here. We can just as well fly to another town, but then he would loose the chance to make a lot of profit today.”

,,He asked how much I am willing to pay, otherwise he wouldn’t do such a strange deal.”

,,Hmm. How much would be just enough to make it profitable?”

L’Rell said the number, and the innkeeper let out an annoyed groan, but continued to listen.

,,Now slowly deal your way up to what is acceptable to you.”

Harsh words in Klingon, mumble mumble. Then the innkeeper left. As he came back, he smacked an bag full of not exactly eatable looking stuff and an water canister on the bar, his expression showing that just one more ask and he would attack them.

L’Rell took the supplies and stuffed them into her duffle bag. Then she continued drinking.

,,Do you want something, too?”, L’Rell handed her the mug with the thick red alcohol. ,,Tastes absolutely disgusting. But I need to get drunk.”

She finished already the forth mug.

Katrina didn’t asked why she needed this, and she didn’t asked if it was an intelligent decision to get drunk while they were fleeing. She knew this world better than her, and if she thought it was safe…

She was starting her fifth mug and Katrina was studying the interesting show of alien everyday life as an harsh growl and the dull sound of a fist hitting flesh made her flinch.

,,Just ignore them.”, L’Rell mumbled and turned to her drink again.

Katrina turned a last look at the woman who just tried to hit her opponent with an bottle, who stumbled dangerously close to another desk surrounded by people. She couldn’t help but listen and stiffen her back at every small sound of the fight, though.

Then suddenly, a sound dangerously close to her, and she jumped off her bar chair just soon enough to see an man smack very closely beside it. His opponent was directly behind him.

Her legs almost got limp from the sudden thrust of hitting the floor, but she managed to stumble out of the way.

The attacker missed, bringing him dangerously close to Katrina. Instinctively, she kicked the bar chair against him. Her knees screamed.

Damn. Bad idea. The Klingons eyes found her, fury in his features. She dodged from the first blow, stumbled backwards. Just rarely enough.

She had to escape every attack. She couldn’t allow them to come in her range. Not in her condition. Another attack. Rushing to the right. A step back. Shit, she needed a weapon, but there weren’t any nearby. Her back hit the wall. She flinched.

He winded up. Katrina jumped forwards, throwing her full weight at him, managing to rim her elbow in his stomach, trying to push her fingers in his eyes. Then he grabbed for her shoulders, hit her upper arm, dull pain. Panicked, she kicked for his shin, twisting herself out of his grip, somehow managing to.

Gasping for air, she realized that she had stumbled in the middle of the brawl.

Screams. Something hitting her back, making her almost fall. The innkeepers tries to calm everybody, lost in the noise.  L’Rell, taking a blow but only using the now close distance to her opponent to smack the end of her metal bar right into his face.

A sway  to her neck, she just barely blocked it with her lower arm, but the power behind it shot pain trough the whole muscle. A woman kicked for her belly. She jumped left, but the motion made her loose her balance, her foot grazed her flank, a trace of pain. She panted. Her vision already started to blurry.

Finally, she saw a gap between the fighters, and fought her way trough with elbows and arms.

As she was out of the most dangerous area, she finally had time to oversee the whole brawl.

L’Rell was stuck somewhere near the back wall, just a few meters beside her, holding the attackers on distance with her staff, never letting them close enough to reach her, gracefully dancing out of the line of their attacks, winding and sliding to the sides. A second attacker ran towards her.

,,Watch out! He’s got a knife!“

Just at the last moment, L’Rell managed to block his stab with both hands on the staff, pushing his arm away and bashing the end against his neck in one single motion.

Then the brawl was close to her again, and she blocked, dodged, stumbled away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something slide over the floor. She ducked from another attack, then she was finally free to actually see what was going on around her, and she saw the disruptor lying on the floor. She let herself fall, grabbed after it, between stamping feet. Somebody almost tramped her hand, but then her fingers closed around the reassuringly solid metal. Aiming in front of her, she stood up, backed out towards the door. L’Rell appeared beside her, exhaustion in her face, panting, blood dripping down a scratch over her right temple.

,,I know I can’t win against all of you!”, Katrina growled, ,,But if you are trying to kill me, I will take at least one of you with me! Who volunteers, huh?”

Nobody moved, everybody just stared.

,,Run”, L’Rell said. And they did.

,,Do you have the supplies?”, Katrina asked as they were finally standing in safety at the street, twenty meters away from the pub.

,,I have.” , she pointed at the duffle back she was already wearing.

Only now, in the quietness and fresh, cold air outside, the realized how much she enjoyed L’Rells presence. Is was not just her function as the obviously stronger fighter who could protect her and knew the area. There was something really pleasant about her calm, decent way. You could talk every time if you wanted to. But if you not, this wasn’t in any way bad.

And then harsh, fast footsteps behind them, and as Katrina wheeled around she saw the muzzle of the Disruptor at the last moment.

She ducked, shot behind her without aiming, ran, L’Rell too, hissing something.

Within a second she was meters before Katrina. Her vision blurred. It became harder and harder to lift her legs.

L’Rell sprinted in a small allay, Katrina followed, but by now, her legs felt as if they wouldn’t obey the will of her mind, but as if they were just numb masses of wood she was teetering on. Just run. Don’t stop. Don’t think about that they will get you. That you are already finished.

But then her legs failed beneath her, and she sprawled. Dull pain as she hit the stone floor. She had to get up again. Afsaneh, Terral, the others at the central command, Gabriel, all this Captains and people needed her.

But as much as she tried to lift herself up, her legs just slid away. She heard their persecutors. Just a moment and they would be in a alley to shot again. Shit. She raised her disruptor.

And then L’Rell shouted some swear, turned, and sprinted back to her.

As she pulled her up, the pursuers turned around the corner. Katrina shot. She missed, but at least they couldn’t aim goodly if they had to duck from her shoots.

L’Rell yanked her with her, running, half carrying her. Katrina had no choice than just blindly move the numb foreign objects, stumble to not be dragged over the floor.

An resident jumped back in his house. Blasts bursting in the buildings beside them, in the street, just centimeters away from their feet, closely past her head. Heavy footsteps. Screamed commands. L’Rell fast breathing and her own raspy gasping.

,,In which direction is our shuttle?“, L’Rells head turned panicked. Only now Katrina realized that they were in a part of the village they didn’t knew.

,,There!”

Just as L’Rell threw herself to the left to escape an blast very close to her shoulder, the maize field came in sight.

They rushed into the tall plants, hard leaves scratched Katrinas hands and face.

,,What if they find our shuttle before we do?”

,,Shit.”, L’Rell said. And then she was suddenly gone.

Katrina tried to sit up, listend. She could hear their persecutors pushing away plants, but they were slow now. They too didn’t knew how to orientate in here.

This time, she actually managed to stand, pulling herself up with holding several maize plants. Far too slowly she stumbled through the field. From time to time, she could hear their persecutors shoot blindly in the plants.

Then she saw one of the fast movers solar sail-like wings towering over the plants. But the enemies seemed to have seen it, too, because now she heard running people.

As fast as she could, she stumbled in wide jumps towards the spaceship. As she was almost there, she realized in horror that the fast mover started to hover, door still open. Steps behind her.

She ran, as fast as she was able to, jumped. But due her shacky legs, it wasn’t high enough and she slammed against the edge with her torso, grabbing for something to pull herself fully in. And then L’Rell grabbed her, and threw her inside.

,,Go to the helm!”, she ordered, taking the disruptor.

Quickly, she drove the fast mover up. Burst of energy shot against the hull. They were trying to hit them trough the still open and only slowly closing door.

L’Rell leaned beside it, absolutely unafraid shooting back.

As Katrina just wanted to turn her head back,  L’Rell flinched back. A bolt missed her chest just for a few centimeters.

They were getting higher and higher but their persecutors still shot, Katrina could see them trough the all transparent walls. They were shooting like madpeople, screaming.

And then, something spluttered behind her, and an energy bolt exploded at her console. Sparks sprayed. She shrieked, flinching invultairily.

,,What was that?”, she sounded hysterical.

,,An ricochet. I was reflected by the wall.”

And then they were finally to high for being shot, and the door closed completely.

For a moment, she saw L’Rell still holding up the disruptor, still alert. There was something surreal to it, as if she would be the modernized version of the painting of an antic war goddess. Everything about her, her focused eyes, the sharp lines of her profile, her armor and her heavy, strong frame, looked oddly scenic. Katrina followed up the form of her angular nose and past those unsettling almondy eyes and then how the ridges and scales swept up her forehead to her crown.

And then the tension left her, and she let herself fall on the back, panting. From one moment to another, all the mightyness was gone. With the pain and exhaustion showing in her face, she seemed so vulnerable suddenly. She hardly perceived that she was Klingon anymore, she was just an exhausted and tired woman. Only now Katrina realized how much younger than her she must have been.

Only a moment, then L’Rell had chased this vulnerability away already. She examined the slight cut at her temple, then she came over to Katrina. Only now Katrina realized that one of the shots must have grazed her lower leg.

,,It is not severe.”, L’Rell announced.

Katrina must have looked skeptical, or maybe L’Rell had just interpreted her expression as that, because she said: ,,I know a thing or two about medicine.”

She seemed really creepy as Katrina realized what her job exactly was and why she would have medicial knowledge, and she had to do her best not to flinch.

,,Is our hull damaged? I want to know if it can still withstand the vacuum of space before we fly higher, I’m not up for dying because of decompression after this damn flight.”

L’Rell typed something in her console. ,,It still works, as long as we are not hit by higher energetic energy blasts. Anyway, why did they have a disruptor at the bar, and how did these people find us so fast?”

,,Huh?”, between all that action, stuff like this hadn’t come to her mind, ,,Is it atypical for your people to carry disruptors in a bar?”

After she saw L’Rells expression, she added: ,,I didn’t wanted to insult you, I simply don’t know how the etiquette about this is in your culture. In an former national state named USA on earth everybody was allowed to carry a pistol – a projectile weapon – and at some places, it was actually normal to carry yours with you in a pub.”

L’Rell looked at her as if she found that piece of earth history interesting. ,,It isn’t for us. You don’t bring a disruptor to a bar fight. It is dishonorable to kill somebody in a simple private brawl, not in a war. They must have looked out for somebody – us, or at least see the possibility that we would have to be killed. I don’t like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not sure how medicinally accurate it is that Katrina healed so fastly, just as I don’t know if House Mogh truly had so less power during that period, and I was afraid to fact check if Romulan and Vulcan languages are truly so closely resembling, but for the sake of my story working, I just assumed it. 
> 
> This chapter is a bit more action filled than the last one, I hope its quality does not suffer from that.
> 
> I would very much like your opinion on it.


	3. 3: The Outpost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Music: ,,The Expanse Intro”  
>  ,,Cosmos” – t.A.T.u  
> Fan cast: Sophie Okonedo as Mother Duraq  
>  Dakota Fanning as Sowl  
>  Cas Anwar as Iqos_
> 
> _trigger warnings: tw cannibalism, tw torture (its only shortly talked about L’Rells horrible twisted views about it, but still), both starting after Mother Duraqs dumb joke about the lab acciedent and ending at “I don’t ever want you to end up in this situation”_

The asteroids extended from one end of her vision to the other, clods that looked like rough stones only so much huger hovering quietly in the black void of space, getting smaller and smaller in the distance and glimmering in the light of the bright sun in the middle, until they became little sparks and then a band and then fading. From where they were flying, one could just surmize the bending. Trough the panorama glass walls of the fast mover it was like flying trough it without any barrier, asteroid belt besides and in front and above her.

Katrina couldn’t help but turn her head and watch with her mouth open.

L’Rell smiled slightly, too, as she saw the beautiful image, and a little bit of her tension seemed to left her as well. She seemed more purposeful now, as if she had already in mind where she would head.

,,You are better with sensors than I. Can you locate every asteroid on the opposite site and play the data over to my consol?”

,,Sure.”, it took Katrina a while to find the right buttons on the alien console, and even then, the outcome was not what she wanted, ,,Oh my, these sensors are the most terrible I ever saw.”

,,These aren’t built for long-range. And I guess Federation has way better sensor technology than we considering how much you focus on exploration.”

,,Maybe.”, Katrina shrugged. Had she accidentally told the Klingon about one of the Federations technological advantages? This was also something she had never realized, that Starfleet must have better sensors than they.

She sent the data to L’Rell – and then , the other woman activated the warp drive. Katrina just had time to stare shocked, as they allready got under warp again, reappearing just between some asteroids and almost hitting them.

,,Are you mad?”, she couldn’t help but shout, ,,Going on warp in a solar system? In the middle of an asteroid belt? Don’t you fucking know how fucking dangerous that technology is when it hits even the smallest solid object?!”

L’Rell just looked outside absolutely calm. 

,,It gives a wrong impression about our position, so that they won’t find my allies outpost.”

So that was what she was searching for.

They curved and flew their way trough asteroids looming above and besides them, until L’Rell seemed to have found a signal and asked in klingon: ,,Care for a ride?”

,,Mother L’Rell”, the deep, rough voice of a woman cut trough the transmission. Had Katrina misheard or had she truly used the word for ,,Mother” as an title for L’Rell?, ,,what are you suddenly doing in this part of space?” She definitely sounded not happy about meeting her. Did they had an old grundge against each other or was that just the general attitude of this woman?

,,Mother Duraq.”, she responded, ,,It would take some time to fly back to your shuttle and beam your samples in. Shall I take you back to your base?”

,,Hmm.”, a man made.

And a girl, much younger than the woman said: ,,Oh yes, sounds good!”

,,Beam us in.”, Mother Duraq muttered.

 

They were three, and they had collected samples of asteroids to find out which of them House Mokai could use further. They materialized in the already pretty campy cockpit of the fast mover, wearing grey space suits that looked much like the one the male Klingon Lord at Katrinas capture had worn, just a lot more worn out and damaged and repaired again, without any ornamental details.

The woman, Mother Duraq, was just as tall as L’Rell and a bit more slender, but still buff and broad-shouldered. The man was only a few centimeters shorter than her, but massive too. The girl stood out, though. Even with her clumpy space suit, she looked small and petite, and she was nearly a half head shorter and thinner than Katrina.

As they let their helmets vanish into the neck piece of their suit, they showed Mother Duraqs angular, light brown face, an much more human skin tone than L’Rells brownish grey. She was bald just like her, and her pale blue eyes pierced Katrina warily.

,,She an important part of my plans.”, L’Rell added, probably trying to protect Katrina.

,,I-hmm.”, the man said. He had somewhat Arabic looking, broad but sharp features and a big nose, and wore no hair beside his short beard.

And then, the helmet of the girl, whats mechanic seemed to have stuck and on which she had smacked her fists several times, vanished. Katrina couldn’t help but stare.

There was a human girl stuck in that Klingon space suit. She could not be older than eighteen, and her face still held the soft edges of a child. A wild black mane surrounded her face, and she had brown skin and pale blue eyes.

But nobody seemed to be surprised about her, and they seemed to have accepted her, considering that she wasn’t as scared and traumatized as an prisoner of war would have but smiling brightly instead.

And then she started talking. In English. She had the worst accent Katrina had ever heard.

,,I chave nev-ah seen ahn chuman face-to-face beforr. Tchis is amah-zing!”, she opened her hand in something that probably should be a half-finished copy of a handshake, ,,Tchis is Iqos”, she pointed at the man, ,,ahnd the grumpy one there is Mother Duraq. My nah-me is Sowl.”

,,You don’t call a superior ,grumpy one’”, hissed Mother Duraq in Klingon, ,,In other Houses, this would have been enough to start a blood feud.”

,,Sorry.”, said Sowl, still in english. And only now Katrina realized that her skin was a bit more leathery than a ordinary humans, that she had pointy, dark-discolored teeth, and that there were some subtle ridges just under where her hair begun, only to see if one knew that they were there.

,,Could you please speak Federation standard? This human here is very important for my… plans, our houses and the whole Empires fate. I want her to feel respected.”, ordered L’Rell, ,,So, can I start beaming the samples in?”

Interesting… So whatever L’Rell planed to use her for, it was bigger scale than she had expected.

Mother Duraq growled und muttered something in her language Katrina did not understand, but then she asked in slightly accented English: ,,Do it.”

Sowls smile became only brighter as the first sample materialized next to L’Rells chair, a transparent cylinder filled with metallically shimmering rocks, while Mother Duraq just groaned and put the sample to L’Rells duffle bag. She and Iqos continued to load the samples to where they bothered the least. Sowl bounced back and forth with excitement.

,,You must tell me ah-bout your trahvells and thee othah houses, Mother L’Rell, I chave heard so much about you. They say you travelled the fahrest of all of the matriarchy.”

So L’Rells House was a matriarchy, contradictory to the strictly patriarchic Klingon society? Interesting. Hopefull she learned more about them and their culture. The idea of a society ruled by women was fascinating.

,,I am.”, L’Rells expression was tired and made her look older than she was.

And then she saw Sowl still fidgeting around, and said: ,,Sit down and don’t move. I don’t want one of these probes materializing inside your body.”

,,Tchis can happen? Cool!”

,,It is actually the most common reason for transporter accidents.”

,,Whoa.”, Sowl looked unsetteling happy about hearing that fact, as if she just have seen an cute cat video and not heard about an definitely scary way of dying.

,,I think it’s getting quite campy in here with all this probes.”, Mother Duraq mumbled.

,,How many more do you have?”, L’Rell asked.

Finally, all samples were beamed in, and Iqos, Mother Duraq and Sowl stood pressed against the walls to find a bit space between them.

,,I am taller than you. I need your seat more.”, grunted Mother Duraq in Katrinas direction, and she ceded it without discussion, but somehow this just seemed to make Mother Duraq even more grumpy. Katrina decided that this pissed expression was probably just what the woman’s face looked like the whole day.

,,You can sit on my lap, human.”, L’Rell offered with a teeth-baring grin. It was somewhat unsetteling.

,,No, thanks!”

,,But I cahn!”

And so they finally flew their way trough the asteroids, Iqos writing the way to their shuttle in the navigation consol.

,,Formidable scar. How did you got it?”, asked Mother Duraq like it would be a fashion piece. Katrina noticed that her own cheeks were covered with thin, artificial looking scars that reminded her of the traditional decorative scars of some African tribes. Katrina had only seen the male Lord at her capture with this but no other Klingon, was this a cultural thing of House Mokai?

,,Problem with a prisoner. Wasn’t going the way I planed.”

,,I heard you are in command of an own ship”

L’Rell sighned and the pain in her eyes told that something had happened concerning this.

,,And how does Voq handle his leadership role? How is it going with you two?”

Now, the pain was obvious. It even was in her pain-filled sharp breath at the name. Who was Voq? And what had happened to him?

,,What happened here?”

,,I’m surprised that Sowl hasn’t told you yet. You will hear early enough, she’s definitely gonna tell you like she told us despite the fact that we were there firsthand as it happend. And the Matriarchy won’t give us money for repairs, even now with those PetaQs of House Duras challenging us for asteroids. They are inexperienced idiots who hardly find an promising rock on their own, though, but it still sucks. Oh, and Iqos managed to have an extremely stupid incident with sulfur acid, an Bunsen burner and some chemicals.”

,,Ehh-ihmm!”, Iqos hissed half annoyed, half resignated, but Sowl already continued: ,,The chole lab smelled like grilled [animal] for _days_!”

Smirking, Mother Duraq added: ,,Smelled quite delicious. Maybe instead of our sticky supplies we should have eaten him for dinner instead.”

L’Rells expression went blank, terror so deep in her eyes that one was just able to see the vain in it. Her hands cramped into the console.

Suddenly, an asteroid turned up directly in front of them. Katrina could only look. Only stare, as they flew directly towards it. They would crash. It was already to close.

Then an hitch, an thrust that viberated in every one of her bones, an Katrina was pulled against wall and samples, her body smacked against the glass, Sowl was thrown against her, her skinny, hard body smacked against her, the space suits spices piercing her clothes, and for a moment she thought she would pass out.

Heavy swearing in Klingon.

,,I am sorry.”

,,Are you mad?”

,,Watch out, next time!”

,,We could have died, you dirty piece of shit!”

,,I chan fly! I am pretty good pilot!”

Only after a few seconds Katrina realized that L’Rell had managed to maneuver out in the last moment and that they hadn’t crashed the asteroid. The others had been thrown around just like her, Sowl clinging at the wall, Mother Duraq hanging pressed between the console and some probes, L’Rell had been smacked against the seat in front of her and Iquos lay over some fallen over probes. The only reason nobody was hurt was that there was simply not enough space for falling far enough.

,,The battle at the binary stars destroyed our warp engines. We were”, she gulped out the words, ,,stranded there, starving, even fearing that we would run out of oxygen. We rationed the little food we had left, hunger became ever-present. Do you know that one does not constantly feels it, it will appear so extremely that it feels like its piercing your stomach, but then, after a hour or so, it disappears and you feel nothing besides having no energy for anything, until it reappears? But even so it wasn’t enough. And so we… there was this human woman, the human captain who had died trying to kill T’Kuvma, and we…”

Katrina knew what was coming, but she didn’t want to hear. It was like in one of this nightmares where one were just not able to hear away no matter what one tried. Her stomach turned. She had to control herself to not gag.

 _They_ ate _Philippa Georgiou._

,,I would have never admit it, but there are all this old tales of heroic warriors eating their enemies to feast their power, but they don’t capture the slightest the horror of eating something that was an sentient being once. She had tried to kill my lord and her comerade had succeeded, she was without honor, but she had fought bravely, a true warrior. I know that for the Matriarchs, the body of someone is meaningless because it is their soul who makes them a person, but we at the Sarcophagus ship believe that it does has meaning, because it did carry the soul of those who left us, and it should be treated with respect therefore. But… what does humiliate a corpse more than slaughtering it, cutting it into pieces and devouring it?”

 _Philippa, what did they do to you… You shouldn’t have ended like that. You deserved better._ She wished she could cover her ears and make some, any sound to overtune L’Rells words, but that would have made her sound weak in front of the Klingons and so she could only continue listen this terrible details. Would she ever be able to purge them out of her head again? ,,She was dead, and I knew it, felt it, but she still looked so much like the vessel caring out her souls commands, like something that possessed heart and bravery and intelligence and the ability to be honorable and… having to cut her open like this was truly horrific, even more than torturing someone, because then it at least happens for a higher cause, and even if you try to humiliate and try to break them, you ultimately respect your prisoner in respecting to know that they will fight to not give away their secrets. But a person simply used as a meal…”

Probably only now Katrina realized just how scary L’Rell truly was. What kind of person would be so easy with torture?

,,And the… the most terrible about it was that we still run out of food, and… and maybe she wouldn’t be enough, and the only other resource we had were other corpes. I…”, she breathed in shakily, ,,I was so afraid that we would have to eat T’Kuvmas body, or that… Voq was so selfless and willing to sacrifice himself, and he had so less respect for himself as outcast and son of none. I feared that he would offer to kill himself and sustain us others with his flesh a little longer. I knew that he… he loved me and he trusted me”, her voice broke, Katrina could hear that she was near to tears, even if she tried to hide it, ,,and so he would have wanted for me to be the one who kills him. I simply didn’t knew if I would be able to do that. To – to eat the man I loved.”

Loved, past tense.

,,This was my biggest fear, that I would not be able to harm him when I needed it for the good of our House and the Empire.”

She shook her head, her eyes somewhere lost in the distance.

,,It isn’t funny having to eat someone. Don’t make jokes about it. And please, please always keep a second warp core and some warp-able shuttlecraft in your station, I don’t ever want you to be in that situation.”

Katrina heard Mother Duraq gulp: ,,I’m… I’m sorry.”

Iqos and Sowl only stared, clearly horrified.

They kept quite for the rest of the flight, until they finally were at an battered shuttle and Sowl beamed over with half of the probes.

Only then they started talking, carefully, news about how old friends and acquaintances were doing, about the hierarchy of the Matriarchs, about the mining crew from another House who was searching at the asteroid field just recently, about episodes of shows L’Rell had missed. They danced around something Katrina didn’t know but what was clearly present between them. What was the reason of their grudge against each other? Katrina was sure it had something to do with Mother Duraqs complaint that L’Rell hadn’t been in this part of space for quite long had something to do with it, and the duty to her House.

Still, they didn’t even bickered or stared warily at each other, subtly attacking each other with words, like human women probably would have. The loyality to their mutual cause and their mutual House, and the solidarity of woman in a woman-ruled society.

Iqos listened alert, but he seemed to communicate entirely trough different ways of grunts.

Finally, they reached an asteroid that didn’t looked much different from every other asteroid to Katrinas untrained eyes. Yet as Mother Duraq typed in a command at her console, an hidden well opened, and slowly, they flew inside. An antique bulkhead opened and closed behind them. They waited until the air had returned into the room, and just as they were trough the airlock, Katrina heard how the bulkhead opened again. A minute later, Sowl flew towards them. Together, they moved hand over hand in zero gravity towards the entrance to the actual station.

The door opened – and they just floated further.

,,Gravity is down again…”, groaned Mother Duraq, just as Sowl happily flew past her and trough the room behind.

She did it so naturally and easily that it looked as if she would swim trough the air, her dark mane flowing around her head like underwater, hovering as if it would be alive, moving with every tiny change and movement she did. Mother Duraq followed a lot lesser elegant, and Katrina used the chance to push herself away from the door and explore the room. But she had measured the power behind it slightly wrong and so she almost hit the shelf in front of her, and the maneuver to avert it caused her to spin fastly and smack against the ceiling. Only after some trying she found out how to move in zero gravity. The slight dizziness that came with missing gravity started to fill her head. It had definitely been to long since she had participated in zero g training…

She looked up, past two quite battered sofas and a clunky desk, and to some big, antique looking machine at the back site of the room just where it made space for the ways to other parts of the station. Mother Duraq was floating in front of it, pressing herself in between it and the wall beside it, and then kicking against it with her full momentum with both feet. She repeated it several times.

,,What is she doing?”, Katrina asked Sowl.

,,It’s the Klingon way of repairing things!”, Sowl said with a grin.

,,What would you Federation people do?”, she asked as she witnessed the look on Katrinas face.

,,Give it a name and speak and praise it friendly, probably. And carefully trying to find out what the malfunction is.”

,,You Federates try to befriend literally everything, do you?”, murmured L’Rell, but sounded rather tired and apatic than mocking.

Suddenly, gravity begun again, and completely unprepared, Katrina crashed to the floor.

She was just collecting everything that hurt on her body as she saw Sowl landing as well, elegant and easily. Mother Duraq and Iqos landed on their feet, too, when not nearly as elegant as Sowl.

L’Rell fell shoulders first on the floor, though, making an quite painfully sounding thud. But she didn’t made any sound, she didn’t even tried in any way to ease her pain, she just laid apatic where she landed.

,,I need to make contact with Dennas”, she said after she had sat up, her voice sounding emotionless and flat.

,,With Dennas?! That are some pretty high ranking people you have to talk! Why not Ujilli?”

,,Everybody knows that Ujilli is merely a sock puppet to ease the fear of patriarchic members of the high council. If I would made contact trough him, the Matriarchs would never take serious what I have to tell them.”

Mother Duraq nodded approvingly.

,,I need to tell them as fast as I can.”

,,Go!”, Mother Duraq yelled, showing matchlessly how to bring military behavior into not-military events, ,,Iqos, bring our defense grid online, then do everything you need of hardware for an save channel to the High Council. Sowl, prepare the software and the relays, and repair every damage you find. L’Rell, help Iqos as far as you’re able. Human, help Sowl. Go, now! Now, go go go, hurry!”

 

Hastily, she ran after Sowl, following her up a ladder and trough an narrow tunnel from whichs ceiling hung cables so badly repaired that it would have made every Starfleet security officer run away screaming with fear.  Did they really actually use the alien equivalent to duckt tape?

But Sowl crawled further, blessedly, until they reached an closed bulkhead. Sowl typed something in the touchpad beside it, and it opened. The tunnel behind it looked just as the other, only maybe even more bedraggled than the one they came from, if that was actually possible.

Katrina climbed trough it – and found herself in zero gravity, to her surprise. Sowl happily swam trough the air, looking like from one of these dreams where you suddenly could fly and air was like water. Amazing, how natural something evolution could have never foreseen could be.

She took a tool from her skirt-like belt and start opening a panel above her (or under her, from her perspective? Zero g was so confusing.). Behind it, there were some battered cables and some circuits. Sowl took another tool, let the first one float in the air and started carefully treating the circuits.

,,Do you often work in low gravity?”

,,Yes”, Sowls eyes glowed as she said this, ,,Duraq says I’m the most skilled person in zero g she has ever seen. Normally, I’m the worst fighter you possibly find in the whole Klingon empire, but without gravity, I easily won against Mother Duraq, Mother B’Ellanna and Iquos _at the same time_. I love zero g, one feels so free, and all this stupid restrictions like up and down or weight don’t exist anymore, and you have to watch out for even the tiniest impulse you make, before everything will have heavy consequences.  Being stationed here is the best thing I could ever imagine, safe for getting an drill for being an zero-g-special-fighter, of course.”

,,Where did you learn all this?”

,,I grew up on the Gur’Hiqrh shipyard, so low or zero gravity areas were simply everyday life for me, and of course my parents let me help with unloading cargo or doing smaller repairs at the outer hull. They and later the other workers. But I guess the most I taught to myself.”

Katrina tried to imagine growing up on a space station, not learning that green and sky and earth under your feet were the natural environment of people, but the metal and recycled air and space behind glass of a space station. How fascinating, getting to learn the point of view of people with experiences so unlike yours.

,,And school?”

,,Chool?”, the word sounded very alien from Sowls mouth, ,,Youh mean when somebody is chooling you something?”

They didn’t had schools? Well, this shouldn’t have surprised Katrina, they were a warrior society after all.

,,So when you have to learn something, you search after a master who can teach you and others that skill?”

,,Or we simply chave an older House member or a friend. And there are codex’s of what one has to learn for her seventh or eight or nineth petal until finally to the skills a Knife Mother has.”

Katrina tried to imagine that, and it felt as if her mind would open wide until she was also seeing the lives here and not just in federation space.

,,And you all learn that at the same place, or does it not matter?”

,,We learn it in the villages of our House, in its fields and temples and material arts schools. And once we undergot the rituals and services and vows of the tenth petal, we will prove ourselves by going into battle, or into special mission for the first time.  For two years, until she is ready to step in front of the Matriarchs and undergoes her initiation rituals and vows before Khaless that she is a Knife Mother now.”

,,Knife Mother… So that is-“

,,Human, are you finished? I need you in the lab.”

,,The relays are now switched for messages.”

,,Why do you want us in the lab, isn’t testing your samples secondary at the moment?”, Katrina asked.

Sowls eyes grew wide, and Mother Duraq at the other end of the line was quiet for a moment.

Damn. Shit. Of course a warrior race like the Klingons had strict hierarchies, and strict rules how one with a lower rank could address somebody higher. She must have been the lowest ranking person now. And she had openly challenged her.

Mother Duraqs voice sounded calm, if slightly out of concept: ,,Until Iqos is finished with recalibrating our subspace-transmissioners, we can’t do anything anyway. And with everything we have to do right now, we will get problems with maintaining the same amount of tested asteroids like any other time, and that would look very suspicious. So that is why my work at the lab is just as important as preparing a message.”

They started to get back to the main parts of the station immediately, and Katrina had to calm herself at the thought at working alongside a Klingon who was probably quite furious at her. At least Sowl would be at her side. For now.

Sowl opened an thick metal door directly at what appeared to be the living room of the station, and they stepped into the laboratory. White tiles and white plastic at the tables and grey bricks at the foom hood.  Translucent glass jars filled with clear liquids stood on a metal shelf.

,,Bind your hair together! Sowl, give her one of your hair ties if she hasn’t one! Here are your lab gloves.”

Katrina did as instructed and put the thick green gummi gloves over her hands. It was slightly more difficult to move her fingers now, and she could hardly feel anything trough the material.

Mother Duraq said: ,,Assist me at my analysis.”

Katrina had to keep herself from breathing in deeply and then out again to collect strength. Exactly what she had wanted to prevent…

Warrily, she stayed out of Mother Duraqs reach and waited for her commands: ,,Give me the filter.”

,,The samples of this five asteroids and this pulverization device there!”

,,Muriatic acid.”, Katrina stared at the acids and their captions. They were all in foreign letters.

,,I… can’t read your language.”

Mother Duraq signed. Then she ripped an paper from her lab journal and wrote some words and their English counterparts on it. And so it happened that the first words Katrina learned to read in Klingon were ,,Muriatic acid”, ,,Hypofluoride acid” and ,,Bromtymolblue”.

Now that she could take a closer look at them, the scanners and analysis device looked even more outdated. In  a federation laboratory, they would haven been outdated since at least ten years, so much could even she see.

Mother Duraq hissed something in Klingon to a sample that aperantly didn’t did what she wanted, but oddly, there were words she understood. Harsh guttural grunts Scandium more sharp guttural sounds.

,,I see your look, human.”, she hissed, ,,You’re not surprised that barbarians like us don’t have own words for science, aren’t you? Why should we have, since we are to primitive and violent to be actually in need of chemistry Fachausdrücke. You think at your glorious Federation how much more advanced you are and explores, such good ones that we have to borrow your words for every part of our science that isn’t connected to war. Oh, you always say that every species is equal, but you don’t believe it now, aren’t you? You are proud on how scientifically advanced you are, and have to stop yourself from laughing at our missing words.”

,,I never said that.”, Katrina said bluntly, ,,I was just neutrally surprised that you use the same words for this chemicals, that is all.”, she decided that blatant honesty would be the only way to smother Mother Duraqs fury, ,,Your species was my enemy during the last months, so naturally I have some prediuces. But I try to let them aside and try my best to understand you, learn about you. For example, how is your everyday life”

Mother Duraq shrugged: ,,We fly out to take samples from asteroids, and in the afternoon we examine them. Sometimes we are out there for whole days, sometimes we are here all the time, depends on how much we found and if we finished our quotas. Damn shit, we were already behind before you and L’Rell came, thanks to this idiots from House Duras, but now I’ll have to make up the time used with helping her too.”

,,Why don’t you use conquered from peoples you conquered help with your work?”

,,Not an exactly respectful question”, Mother Duraq angrily pipette solution on a filter ,  ,,Do you really think we are so dumb that we would give slaves equipment perfectly fitting for doing a lot of damage like laser-cutters, pulverisers, a shuttle and an base and way to create their own supplies from all the metals in this rocks? Besides, we are not nearly the barbarians you think we are. Since more than fivety years none of our colonies started a rebellion. They celebrate our holidays, mixed with their own feasts and customs. For many of them, their living standard raised as our governance over their planets begun. Would they behave like this if we suppressed them?”

Katrina didn’t knew what to say. Could it really be that she had been so wrong? The only Klingons she had got to know had been solidiers, her enemy. But they couldn’t be all. How did the rest of their population live, what did they thought about the war? Did they maybe see Starfleet as just as monstrous, because they also only knew the people fighting them, not their homeworlds and culture and ethics? She had to think at how different L’Rell with her wonderful calm and thoughtful was from how she had expected a Klingon to be. She had never expected that the company of one of them could feel so pleasant, that talking with them could feel so fulfilling and deep.

,,Honestly, how can they think that we don’t need money?”, Mother Duraq brought her out of her thoughts, ,,Do you see this, this is all from the fume cupboard falling apart. What was in your last sample? Plaster from the ceiling and rust… And as if this wouldn’t be enough L’Rell appeared just at this fucking day.”

,,You dislike her”

,,No.”, Mother Duraq put one of the solutions in a scanner, wrote the outcome in her lab journal, ,,I am suspicious of her methods, that describes it better. She was meant to be low-ranking secret-finder and eye for the Matriarchs, all of her education went forward to this end. An alert servant who stays in the background, if you will.”

Katrina found herself listening alert. Who was L’Rell actually? The thought of learning this was utterly fascinating, and she realized that she strived for hearing every single detail. What had led her to this important position on the Sarcophagus Ship? How had she come in contact with T’Kuvma? What had she dreamed of becoming, as she was a girl?

,,She had always been unpredictable and not exactly clear in where her loyalty laid, causing more trouble than good things for the clan. She enlistend to going to Rihannsu space, and even after that, the Clan only heard something from her all two months or something, but what they heard was always extraordinary intelligent and useful. She spent just as much time with those fallen Clan of T’Kuvma with their broken ship and territory in wasteland, and it became more and more in time. She had a habit of taking services that would bring her close to them, watching them. I still don’t understand why she spent so much importance of the House of her biological father, what is a biological father more than giver of genes?”

Now that was interesting. So L’Rell was the descent of two Houses. And seeing biological fatherhood as something so unimportant, that was an fascinating point of view by this matriarchic society.

,,The last time she gave a report to the Clan was four years ago, the last time somebody heard anything of her two years ago.

I work here the whole time, commanding the important task of getting metal supplies for House Mokais fleet, and just in the moment where we are already struggling with concurrence, she suddenly reappears from doing Khaless knows what with T’Kuvmas weird little cult, with an human ally, and says that she carries out a mission that isn’t only essential for our House but for the whole empire. Am I the only one who questions her judgement after something like this?”

,,She challenged your leadership.”

Mother Duraq grunted, ,,This is a political task, and due working for our secret service she has a higher political rank than I. I support her in everything that needs to be done for the wellbeing of our house. I just don’t feel well with somebody forgetting so much about the inner workings of our clan leading in something like this. Do you know what exactly threatened Mokai and the empire?”

,,I just know that an warlord named Kol took over command over the Sarcophagus Ship and doesn’t takes forth T’Kuvmas plan of uniting all houses. But not more.”

,,Hmmp. Give me the Muriatic Acid.”

 

Some time later, they had lunch in the small sitting space right before the laboratory. Up until a month or so the in the worst case still slightly alive worms would have disgusted the hell out of her, but after the hunger in her prison cell every notion of disgust had vanished and she only relished how fat and saturating they were. The everyday-life-talk continued, and L’Rell seemed completely uninterested in it, as if she wouldn’t be part of this conversation. And then, one false comment by Iqos brought Sowl to telling how the three of them had found the wreck of an old Rihannsu ship drifting trough space in great detail. It had seemed to have some malfunction of the singularity used for the hyperlight-drive of Romulan ships (an interesting information that Katrina stored for later use by Starfleet) and only Sowls excellent abilities in zero gravity had prevented them from dying too.

,,…so many details about their culture! L’Rell, you would have loved it!”

L’Rells eyes sparkled and for a moment Katrina almost believed that she was normal and that she had been just exhausted. But then she saw how she seemed to had to force herself to eat.

Afterwards, Mother Duraq vanished back in her lab – but they could still see and hear her trough the glass window right over the seats – while Sowl and Iqos kept sitting homely. L’Rell apatically stayed where she was.

,,How’s my brother?”, Sowl gleefully asked.

L’Rells eyes flinched up: ,,Dead. All of my crew.  Kol killed them all.”

For a moment, Sowl and Iqos just stared, to shocked to show any emotion. Katrina heard one of Mother Duraqs jar shatter and the solution spilled over the floor as she forgot to hold it further.

And then, without forewarning, all three of them started screaming. It was loud and full of pain and utterly alien. Katrina flinched, but then realized that she was likely witnessing some farewell ritual.

After a moment, L’Rell joined, quieter than the others, interrupted by pain-filled breaths.

As they stopped, she was breathing shallowly, horror in her face, as if trying to keep herself from breaking down. Tears spilled over Sowls face.

This was definitely not an sensitive way of delivering this message. Katrina would have to look how she could comfort them in any way.

,,I will kill him!”, Sowl cried, ,,I will claim revenge from the Clan and then I will kill him! I’ll make him pay for what he did!”

She jumped up, ready to run to the shuttle, her face distorted by hate and grief. Iqos grabbed her wrist: ,,You can’t do anything.”

,,You would only be killed”, L’Rell added toneless.

,,But I have to revenge him! I have to protect his honor, and I would be honorless if I simply let this warlord kill him and get away with it. I have to”, Sowl blubbered out angrily, baring her sharp teeth.

Iqos was still holding her arm: ,,You honor uses you nothing if you are dead.”

Sowl let out an painfilled sob and collapsed on the table.

Katrina would have expected that an warrior race like the Klingons would disregard  crying, see it as a sign of weakness, but in fact, nobody seemed to despise her for it. The opposite, Iqos laid an arm around her and pulled her to him, let her huddle against his shoulder. His eyes shimmered with uncried tears too. Mother Duraq breathed in deeply and pulled off her lab coat, gloves and goggles, and hustled out.

,,Why? How…?”, Iqos voice almost broke.

,,He wanted to make an example. Wanted to show that he has the power now, and strip me of from my last support. He took over the Ship of the Dead by a honorless perfidity, but he isn’t carrying forth T’Kuvmas teachings. He simply wants power. I was the last person keeping him from it. And so he wanted to humiliate me. He… he forced me to accept giving him my support after I found the bodies of my crew, and painted my face with this silly red . And then he incarcerated me in the body disposal chamber to die. Only through the carelessness of one of his guards I’m still alive.

It was completely unnecessary to kill them. They didn’t die for a cause, or in a honorable fight. The simply died to hurt me.”, L’Rell said with powerless fury.

,,It is not your fault.”

,,I should have protected them. I should have found a way to take Kols command.”

,,He has an whole powerful army behind him. There is no way you could have won against him”

,,I should have found a way. I am a Knife Mother, a weaver of secrets and walker in the dark, this is exactly what we have been trained for.”, she laughed sadly, ,,I would have poisoned him, but he cooks as hobby”, she said this just as one would have said ,,He kills puppies in his free time.”

She signed, and a single tear ran down her otherwise expressionless face even as she tried to hold it back. Somehow, it hurt much more to see her like this than seeing her face twisted in agony. ,,All gone. There is nothing we can do, other than warning Dennas and the Clan, and continue my… plan.”

Mother Duraq touched her shoulder sympatically, then they left to continue their preparations. Iqos left to finish modify the fast mover.

Sowl staid, staring at the wall.

,,I failed. I should be braver, I should have done my work more faster. I do not support them good enough.”

Katrina swore herself to at least try to repair the damages L’Rells unexpected confession had caused.

She walked over to the Klingon girl, softly touching her shoulder.

,,You did everything you could. You do great.”

Now, Sowl broke and sank into her arms, sobbing heavily.

,,He… He wanted to visit meh in a few dahys. He could be still alive if this chad chappend a few days later.”

,,I am sorry.”, Katrina stroke her thick, dark hair. Sowl sobbed again, burying her face deeper in Katrinas shoulder.

 

Sowl had gone to repair something, too, after she had stilled herself a bit. It was a good idea, to distract herself.

But now, Katrina had nothing useful to do. She had tried to help Sowl, but due her miserable technical knowledge, she had had to explain every tinny detail to her, and it had caused her more work than it solved. Now Katrina was pacing around in the station, feeling completely useless and out of place. This wasn’t her world. This was in the middle of an hostile warrior race. How could she have thought to survive this? But Federation needed her.

She realized that she wanted to speak with L’Rell, not even mostly to comfort her. The realization brought thick, cold fear in her heart. How could she feel friendship with an torturer, the woman who had been sent to interrogate her and who had only saved her life for her own goals.

But L’Rell wasn’t how she had expected her to be, and she longed for her calming, thoughtful way.  She remembered how her full lips curved into a smile and how she inclined her head a bit, eyes sparkeling, and she missed this expression the last few days. She remembered how comforting it had been to feel her hand on her arm, to be helped walking by her.

Katrina shook her head to expel these thoughts.

Finally, she found what she had searched, and paced inside the bathroom. The shower was equipped with an venturous construction for tuning the water temperature that didn’t exactly looked like it should be anywhere near conducting substances such as water.

With a sign, she took off her clothes nevertheless. She hadn’t seen herself for quite some time now, and it was a shock. Her hair was flat and a greasy mat, her cheeks hollow, her skin covered with bruises. She had always been thin, but now she was unhealthy skinny, ribs stacking out. With some effort, she managed to turn her look away, and stepped into the shower, hoping nobody of the others would use the bath in that time.

It took her some time to find out how to regulate the water temperature, but after that, soothingly hot drops surrounded her. Her legs were starting to feel jittery after all the time she had spent standing this day, so she sat down at the floor, feeling water fall on her head and bare shoulders and back. It hurt a bit where it touched the injury from the electric shock.

 She took a bottle she hoped was shampoo and started washing her hair. She hadn’t showered since at least two weeks. She must have smelled terribly, and she was grateful that L’Rell hadn’t mentioned that.

It was hard work to clean her greasy, tangled mess of hair, but finally she was finished, and kept sitting.

With the hot water, it felt like it would wash away all the tension and strength she had pulled together in the past time, and suddenly she found herself crying.

She would very likely not survive this. Her home, her federation lied in flames. They were over and out to give up the values they were founded upon.

She was starting to feel some connection to L’Rell, meaning that she would very likely loose the distance she needed so desperately to find a way to remain in control about her.

But somehow, it felt good, being finally allowed to be weak again. She let herself sink against the cool wall, and be uncontrolled, fragile for just some minutes more.

 

Being finally clean again felt wonderful, even if her hair had soaked her uniform. She skulked around in the station, walking wide curves and crawling trough maintenance shafts to avoid talking with the others. Soon enough she would be in the shuttle with L’Rell again, with no space for herself. Lost in thought, she suddenly heart a voice she didn’t recognized immediately. No, she actually had heard it before, but where? She crawled further, careful to make no noise.

Now she was looking trough an air outlet, staring in an small room with a computer terminal. The screen and the encoded marks running underneath it looked definitely more sophisticated than anything she had seen of Federation technology. After all the effort Sowl and Mother Duraq had to put in creating this channel, it must have been highly encrypted, but there were no interferences at all. The face of an woman Katrina knew all to well stared back at L’Rell from the screen, neck and shoulders protected by golden and black armor, skin pale, some elegant jewellery covering her forehead.

,,… our fleet now.”, she said with her clear, almost girl-like voice.

,,What other prove do you need, Lord Dennas?”, even trough the harsh sounds of the language, L’Rell managed to sound soft and humble. How unusual for her. Dennas must have a much higher rank than her to behave that submissive.

,,This is not about proof, it is about suspicion, tactics and fleet strength.”

L’Rell breathed in deeply as if she needed to collect strength, raised her eyes and said: ,,He just showed very clear how he deals with opponents. Without me, he has the total control over the Ship of the Dead. Over the prototype of cloaking technology. You are a politician, surly you must have noticed how more and more Houses fell in line after him because they need this technology. Even before this, House Kol would have very likely enough troops to conquer half of our empire. This is not about my revenge. Not about House Mokais pride. This is about our whole empire.”

,, ,Our empire’”, Dennas uttered with the calm amusement of a wise woman teaching her student a lesson. She did not need to become loud or insulting to show her superiority. She simply was, everything about her elegant appearance radiating power and cool intelligence almost like those fictional women like Galadriel or Ambassador Delenn. ,,I think you projecting dangerously much of your lords dream on our current situation. There is no ,our’.”

,,There will be, soon. The ,our’ of those Kol conquered.”

,,Which would certainly a cruel way to fulfill your utopia. But I am afraid that they will follow him in their blind bloodthirst.”

,,So House D’Gor will support me?”

,,We can’t. Flee. Continue your plan. Your fate will probably shape the fate of all Klingon Houses.”

Katrina shifted closer to them, but Dennas didn’t leave further instructions about L’Rells plan, just slammed her fist against her chest in an materialistic farewell.

,,In the meantime, we will continue to serve him. Observe him, learn the way he thinks, the way he plans.”, she grinned, baring her sharp teeth, ,,This is what our two clans are best in, right? We will stay close to him, because as you know, the closer you are to your enemy, the easier it is to thrust the knife into his hearts.”

,,I am honored that you sacrificed your time to hear my concerns.”, L’Rell repeated the fist-gesture, eyes downcast.

Then Dennas face vanished to black.

 

It felt good to sleep in an own room, in an actual bed. The mattress felt strangely soft underneath her, but she cherished the feeling of not having to be alert even when she slept. She dozed and turned around for quite some time as she awoke in the next morning.

She put on the clothes Sowl had spent her, relieved to be finally out of the conspicuous Starfleet uniform. The fabric felt thick and rough on her skin.

As she walked in the living room, the others were still in their nightgown. Sowl wore only panties and a band shirt that looked almost hilariously similar to human ones, Iqos and Mother Duraq were clothed in opulent robes, and they all looked hilariously, well, human in such casual clothing. L’Rell sat aphetic in her chair, using her plain military style underwear as pajamas. As Katrina had imagined – and it disturbed her a bit that she had actually thought about how the younger womans body looked underneath her armor at all – she was heavy and well muscled, the tank-top outlining her broad shoulders and well-shaped full breasts. Fascinated, Katrina realized that the ridges were not only on their heads, but that they continued over her neck and shoulders and cleavage as well, triangled lines running down her throat, thick ridges leading down her torso, and lines drawing shapes on the form of the muscle of her upper arm that reminded her at old military uniforms. The tank top was slightly to short for a large woman like her, showing a bit slightly chubby but still buff stomach. The loose underpants gave way for long, thick, well muscled legs, and Katrina was unable to leave all those intriguing details with her eyes. If she would have been human, she realized, L’Rell would have been absolutely gorgeous, a butch icon.

And then she finally moved her head, and Katrina looked away, praying that she hadn’t seen how she had stared at her. Instead, she picked a slice of something that looked a bit like bread and an grayish paste. It tasted good, like an odd mix of cashew nuts, chocolate and curry.

It still surprised Katrina how much they ate, even short, petite Sowl. Well, one probably needed a lot more calories if one had two sets of organs?

After breakfast, they helped L’Rell and Katrina to load the last bit of equipment in the fast mover, and Iqos checked the changed warp core again.

Then all three of them stood in a line and smited their fists against their chests.

L’Rell and Katrina repeated the gesture.

,,Thank you.”, she was honestly glad about having meet this people. It was such an different way of perceiving this culture if you didn’t fought against them, and she would have never imagined that there were Klingons like enthusiastic, naïve, tinny Sowl, or grumpy but kind mineralogist Mother Duraq, or an quite technician like Iqos.

The shuttle door closed. The bulkhead opened and they flew into the darkness illuminated by stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, I feel so sorry for that dialogue about poor Philippa, both for Cornwells sake as for possible readers too, because it wouldn’t be disturbing enough just the way it was in canon, wasn’t it? But then, maybe this was why I had to write it
> 
> As you may or may not have noticed trough my “fancast” for Iqos and the inspiration music, I let myself be quite inspired by “The Expanse” with the tone of space flight I try to get across in this, and that part about the missing gravity because the flowing hair in zero g in this series was just so gorgeous and visually amazing that I had to have something like that in one of my stories too
> 
> Another big inspiration was the really brutal but good “Green” series by Jay Lake, which basically has a black lesbian assassin cult in it, who also call each other Mother [insert name] as some kind of respectfull honorific, and also has this certain steps of the young recruits education named “Petals”. I thought it was just quiet fitting for a matriarchic clan like House Mokai (or do they just have matriarchic elders? Oh god, I hope they show that the whole clan is a matriarchy and write it well, it would have been so fascinating) I just want to publish all this work because the first episode of Discovery comes out and kicks all my cool headcanons and character backstory in the dustbin. 
> 
> I can’t believe I am apearently the first person who writes anything in a fic about Dennas, or at least firstly uses the tag, she has such a cool character design?


	4. 4: My Beautiful Liar, Why Are You Crying?

**4: My Beautiful Liar, Why Are You Crying?**

_Music: ,,Lost At Sea” – In This Moment_

_,,Warrior” – Beth Crowley_

 

For ninety-nine percent of the time, fleeing their way through enemy territory was waiting. L’Rell and her hold watch in shifts, one supervising the sensor data, the other doing whatever she wanted. It was like the longest, most dangerous, most boring shuttle trip ever.

Over the fornoon, they had first checked the Rihannsu space suit for damages (no damages present, as far as they could tell, but thanks to their missing diagnosis tools this meant not much) and talked, but now there were simply no topics left anymore. They had played a game Katrina had learned during an particular boring nebula examination, saying two things and making the other choose. For the first hours, it was quite interesting, carefully asking political questions, questions about the others food preference or favorite works of fiction. But despite Katrina actively working against it, it had become more and more personal, and although she needed, _wanted_ to learn more about L’Rell, the younger woman had token the chance to put some rather not so nice ideas against each other. She seemed to have an sick fascination with death, blood and killing people in the most painfull, slowest way possible, and as if this wouldn’t have been disturbing enough, she was uncomfortably confident with the needs of her body. Katrina didn’t knew if it was a general Klingon thing, something from House Mokai or just the way L’Rell was, but she had absolutely no problem with telling an almost-stranger explicit details about her dating history or letting her choose between two equally x-rated and kinky practices. The worst thing about it was that she the younger woman was an good enough story teller to imagine everything in great details, and to Katarinas utterly shock it didn’t disgusted her nearly as much as she had expected.

The first few questions, she forced herself to overcome her inhibitions, but as the questions became weirder and weirder, Katrina desperately searched after a way out of this, and at ,,knife play or spanking?” she finally had enough.

,,I think this is getting a bit boring after several hours.”

L’Rell shrugged, suddenly apathetic again. Had she only tried to distract herself from her guilt?

,,Maybe we could play another game? Chess?”

,,We don’t have figures or a board”

,,We could maybe draw them?”

,,We don’t have paper”

Katrina shrugged and turned back to her console. Now, without anything else to do, her thoughts went back to L’Rells mysterious lover, Voq. Whoever he was and what had happened to him, by the way L’Rell spoke about him, she must have not only be deeply in love with him, but also seen some importance of him for her plans. What role did he play in this war? This was one of the things she needed to know as soon as she had manipulated L’Rell to trusting her.

She had gently tried to get more information about him, yet all she knew was just that he had been very sacrificing and devoted, and that he apparently had quite skilled fingers and lips. L’Rell had told that with longing and wistfulness in her voice, but seeing her like that had been still better than her former apathy, and her clear, accented voice aroused Katrina with the explicit pictures it brought. Truly amazing how less these reproduction mechanisms cared about all the missing similarity and perversity of the subject activating them. 

They sat for a while, Katrina scanned their surroundings, and L’Rell checked their weapons, and then L’Rell scanned and Katrina checked the shields, until finally, she was tired of scrolling through the buttons another time while only understanding half of them, and asked: ,,Is there any why to change the language to English?”

L’Rell had fallen back to staring at the back of her head, deeply in thought, Katrina worryingly realized. But the question brought her out of her pain, and with weak, tired voice she said: ,,Not without an informatican more skilled than I and approximately several weeks.”

,,Oh crap…”

,,Seems like you have to learn our letters.”

,,Hmm.”, and again, there was the problem with the missing paper.

But L’Rell didn’t begun to explain any of the symbols to her, and Katrina didn’t found anything that even looked remotely like an dictionary.

,,I have music, movies and books on the data crystal.”, she suddenly said.

,,The federation one?”

,,Yes.”

But why the hell, actually? Had she encoded some secret information in the files and used them to hide them, what other reason should she have to carry something as un-useful around with her?

Katrina raised an eyebrow, but opened the files on her console. Several titles in Klingon, of course. Sighning, she scrolled down the list. From time to time something that must be romulan flashed out, as well as several writing systems she couldn’t identify.

And then there suddenly was something in latin writing system. She only realized how strange this was after a second, so ordinary this writing system was to her.

,,Tale of the Heike”, the titled read. As she tipped on it, she soon found out how to display only works in this language, and several other books, movies, a surprisingly large amount of Rock songs from the last threehundred years till present and even shows from the federations most important planets were displayed.

,,You stored human literature on that?”, Katrina asked surprised.

,,We were stranded near enough federation border to have access to the public-open datacores. I had not much variety there and their stories are always a good way to learn to understand your enemy. There are some works among them that could almost be tales for us, too, with their narrations about honor and war and cameradie. The Tale of the Heike, with their story about warring clans and warrior monks in ancient Japan. Lord of the Rings. Songs of the Pale Desert by T’Par. The Snow Mage series. Star Wars.

Your works of fiction are a lot less boring than I thought.”

,,Does that mean you think we are boring and dull?”, Katrina asked mockingly.

L’Rell smiled. How wonderful it was so see it again. ,,You clearly taught me better. You are more…pleasant company than I ever believed a human capable of.”

,,Well thank you.”, Katrina chuckled.

,,And you are a more pleasant company than I expected one of your people to be.”, emphasaisingly she laid her hand at L’Rells shoulder. She felt her warmth trough the rough fabric of her shirt, the hardness of her collar bone and shoulder blade and the softer firmness of her back muscles. Yet there were somehow more hard parts than she had expected, and at places where only softer flesh and not bones should have been.

,,Do you see me as an brutish, empty-brained barbarian?”, L’Rell growled, but her smile continued. It was not aggressive, rather the opposite, it was an deep, pleased, approving sound that seemed to vibrate in Katrinas chest, made her heart beat faster and sent an restless, anticipating energy trough her body.

,,An empty-brained barbarian would have hardly created this plan of misleading Kol but would just have directly attacked him and died hopelessly outgunned. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be alive anymore long since.”

L’Rell laughed. It sounded utterly human, light and high-pitched, and even if it showed her sharp carnivore teeth, she suddenly didn’t seemed to be Klingon, an hostile alien anymore but just a delighted person, and her blue eyes sparkled.

Even as she calmed down after the few first bursts, her lips still quirked to a smile and she chuckled trough her teeth. She had full, dark and pleasantly curved lips, at the left the edges of the scar tugged at their corners. Katrina took in every detail.

,,I like it when you smile.”

L’Rell leaned towards her, and Katrina felt how in the small cockpit of the fast mover the tip of her feet touched her ankle. 

It seemed as if she would examine Katrinas face as well, because her eyes were firmly focused on her lips, following their form with her gaze. Finally they left, wandering over her other features.

Their gazes meet. It felt as if there was some kind of magnetic force between their eyes, locking them in their position, making it unable to look away.

,,I like your smile too”, L’Rells voice was low and hoarse.

There was an intensity, and unblinking focus in her gaze that Katrina could almost physically feel. Her irises had no sparkles or little lines inside them, just a electric blue plane and a darker lining at the edge, giving them an utterly non-human, seagull-like quality.

They were close, very close now. Katrina still felt her foot against hers, the warmth of her shoulder underneath her hand. For a moment she caught a trace of her scent, earthy and heavy and feral.

The intensity of her gaze suddenly was too much, and Katrina looked down. What was she doing?

Only now she realized that her hand still rested on L’Rells shoulder, and that it definitely had been far too long there.

She pulled it back and turned to her console, desperately wishing there would be anything out there that required their attention, having them focus on something other than this strange moment that had just happened.

Had she actually _flirted_ with the Klingon? Her heart still raced and her body felt shaky and full of nervous energy at the same time. No, she couldn’t have. L’Rell was an torturer and interrogator, she belonged to an highly aggressive and hostile alien race Federation was at war against, Katrina could impossibly be attracted to her. No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly have flirted with someone with such backward moralities like a Klingon.

That had just been an conversation taking a wrong turn and becoming awkward.

 

L’Rell took over the piloting and watching soon, and Katrina sat down crossleged on the sleeping bag and started watching one of the series she found at the data crystal. To her surprise, there was something she could only describe as ,,Klingon Sitcom” and it actually had English subtitles (seemed to be because there was a large number of fans from some race to obscure to synchronize it in their language but almost all of them spoke English). It was actually quite fascinating to see aliens undergoing their everyday life from their perspective, and she was quite sure that it provided an useful source about the Rihannsu as well.

She was surprised how emphatically it painted its protagonist, a lanky, wild maned girl who was quite intelligent but incredibly goofy, an boy afraid of everything and another raised by Orions, which led to him awkwardly flirting with absolutely everything that crossed their way, who had made it to their goal to become honorable warriors.

She had to stifle an laugh as they managed to start an red alert because the scared boy mistook an swarm of fat goose as enemy drones, and the chaos that the just equally incompetent captain started after that.

,,,bah, ko’tal!’?”, L’Rell said with a smile, ,,This series is amazing. It helped me trough a very hard time as a teenager.”

Katrina waited for more, wanted to know more, but L’Rell just continued to check her console.

As it was time for dinner, Katrina took the pilot seat again, while L’Rell searched in the bag of food.

Katrina turned around as she delightfully claimed: ,,I didn’t knew these still existed! The last time I ate one was ten years ago. They bring childhood memories back.”

She had found several cans of what looked like tuna with some vegetables in it.

,,My handle used to eat these after our runs at the higher seas in the mountains. I thought it wouldn’t be produced anymore long since.”

She handed one can to Katrina: ,,It is fish mush with vegetables, but it tastes a lot better than it sounds.”

Warily, Katrina took the first spoonful of fish, long since having learned to not trust the Klingon measure of what tasted good.

,,Hmm, that is indeed good!”, she chewed and swallowed, ,,So you were growing up in the mountains?”

L’Rell thought for a moment, probably pondering what information she could give away without revealing her the position of her clans territory.

,,The village and temples I were taught in lay between two mountain lines, opening in front towards an vast sea. Our Matriarchs generations and generations before me had chosen this place as their stronghold because the cliffs towered around the shore like powerful rampart so that their enemies could only reach House Mokai per feet or over the water and even then we would have been able to spot them from miles away. Now, after the innovation of aircrafts and spaceships this is irrelevant of course. But the mountains still feel mighty and noble. Grey, ragged walls with speckles of green.

We went on runs there, to teach us stamina and strength. I still remember the feeling of chocking in the hot air, clothes splicing on my body with sweat, stones sliding away under my feet, the raspy breathing of the other girls mixing with mine. But it was a sweet pain. It was worth the view all over our town and the sea and mountains. And to know that I was strong and enduring.”

,,Tell me more about that. Your past and your heritage fascinates me.”

There was something nostalgic in L’Rells expression. She thought for a moment, then she had chosen her piece of random unimportant memory: ,,Every year, as one of their first responsibilities after ending our training as well as a celebration of this, the new Warrioresses scramble up to the small chapel high on the cliff wall.

To show their dangerousness in doing what our ancestors did to protect their territory. And to bring offerings.”

,,Offerings? In the sense of exhausting, painfull rituals to show their strength once more?”

,,No. Or in a way, too, maybe, though there are more tormenting rituals. Literal offerings in the form of…”, she paused a moment, searching for the right translation to English, ,,I think the closest thing to a federation animal would be ‘Seagulls’.”

,,Seagulls?!”, what the hell? Hopefully her surprise hadn’t shown in her voice, who knew how important the cultural significance of this ritual was.

,,Before Khaless, our ancestors had their own holy women and men who told their own knowledge about the world beyond this one. We still worship these forces. One of these myths tells about a young warriorress who was one of the few survivors of a battle lost. In her flight, she had not noticed that she ran into a blind end. Behind her was only the rough sea, to wild and to interspersed with cliffs to be able to swim trough it, in front of her the enemy forces, and this happened to a time where aircrafts were still to rare and to difficult to contact to call help on this way. But then the warriorress saw a giant seagull start from her hidden nest in the cliff, and tried to catch some of her last proviant. The warriorress attacked the gull with her mek’leth, and the injured bird fell from the sky and became a terrible but elegant creature, a woman with skin as pale as the birds feathers and the sharp bill and feathered face of the seagull, with claws instead of feet and wings stretching out on her arms.”

,,We have creatures like this in some of our old myths too, we call them harpies.”

L’Rell smiled: ,,Our name for them means roughly translated ‘sky mistress’.

The warriorress was shocked, of course, but despite her fear she still tried to kill the gull woman. But as she raised her weapon, the woman spoke: ‘I am impressed with your bravery to fight me even if you are lost and even if you saw my true being. If you let me live and tend my wounds, me and my sisters will teach you the art of hiding in the cliffs and not been seen by anyone, even your enemies.’

And so, the warrioress spared her life and called the other survivors of her company to her. At first, they were horrified by the sky mistress, but as the warrioress explained to them, they were willing to learn. And as their enemies arrived in the early morning of the next day, sky mistresses and Mokai warriors together hid in the cliffs and in the flat water and only came out as their enemies believed themselves safe, and so their battle was won at last.

And for this reason, we bring seagulls to the top of the cliffs every year to gift them food and let them free to symbolically thank their sisters.”

She paused a moment. ,,Surly this must sound silly to you federation people with your only believe being the engines you create and the cold science you use.”, she added appologially.

,,No, not really. In contrast, I found it a fascinating story. Most of us may not believe our ancestors mythologies and gods and goddesses anymore in every word that was written down, but that is mostly because of the horrors our ancestors did with them, and that does not mean that we can’t listen to the greater wisdom lying underneath them. We believe in science, but science isn’t just cold mathematics, it is the process of learning about the reasons behind why everything is the way it is and how it could become better.”

,,Still a strange way of believing at something.”

Katrina shrugged: ,,I grew up with it, for me it was so normal that I never really questioned it”

 

Time started to blurry into itself. Katrina tried to stick to their shift system and sleeping cycles as closely as possible, to bring at least an semblance of an night-and-day-cycle into ever-black space, but there was no way to actually feel how time passed. When it was her time to navigate, she heard L’Rell behind her turn and rustle when she should be sleeping, but she didn’t said something about it and time blurred and in the next moment her “night” was already over, and so she simply ignored it. The nervous tension too much time spent on too less space created had settled between them, too, and even though they were flying the ship or relaxing quietly beside each other for most of the time, an outbreak of that energy lurked far to close underneath the surface all the time, ready to explode in either direction. Sometimes, they were both sitting there and then suddenly a song started and they blurted it out fervently (“so you can throw me to the wooolves… tomorrow I will come back, leader of the whole pack… beat me black and bluuuue…. every wound will shape me, every scar will be my THROO-OO-NE!”).

But Katrina was all to aware that it could hit out in the other direction very well too. She just hoped the resulting fight wouldn’t be bad enough to harm one of them.

 

Katrina was once again clicking trough the sensor readings, holding watch alone, as she heard a panicked gasp from behind her. She turned around just in time to see L’Rell flinch up from her sleeping position, shaking her head and mumbling ,,No, no..”, until she arrived fully in reality and immediately forced herself still as if she would feel embarrassed by her reaction.

,,I was dreaming that Silrek and I were doing some basic weapon checks on the battle deck, only that they were not ordinary because Kol was watching us.”, she was apearantly so upset that she didn’t even realized that Katrina had no idea who Silrek was, ,,And Voq was there too. For once he didn’t managed to merge with the background as he was so skilled in, and so Kol found him… I… I tried to protect him, to talk him out… But I just couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save him.

And then Kol forced me to become part of his House. I didn’t even knew if Voq was still alive at that point, but for the sake of the smallest chance of saving him, there was no other way than working with him. Silrek and I had to share our Houses secrets, our technology with him just for the bare hope of ever seeing the luck turn to our side. And he forced me to kneel and painted me with this disgusting, sticky, oily red. He raised my chin and laughed at me. They all laughed at me. And I had no other choice than to laugh with them, because they outnumbered me. Until the end I did not know whether Voq was still alive at all…”

She looked up now, eyes looking haunted: ,,Do you know these dreams where you awake at some point, but you can’t be relieved about that because everything is just as horrible in reality?”

,,I’m sorry.”

,,The worst thing is that I don’t even know if he is still alive. If I will ever see him again.”

,,What happened to him?”

She looked away, her lips clenched tight, gaze frozen as if to keep herself from crying.

,,I… I sent him away. I had to. Wasn’t my idea, and I wouldn’t have done it, but sending him on this mission was the only way to maybe still accomplish T’Kuvmas goal. To maybe, just maybe keep him alive.”

,,And you never heard again from him?”

,,No.”, she breathed in shakily, ,,He didn’t deserved this. He didn’t deserved that I had to do that to him just to save him.”

,,But he enlisted to it, even though he knew about the risks?”, she was closer now than ever before of finding out what had happened, but how could she coax more information out of her without being pushy and cold and also letting her realize that she was suspecting about Voqs importance in her plan.

,,Of course. He was so devoted. He would have done everything for T’Kuvmas dream without questioning.”, she smiled sadly, ,,Maybe that is naivety. But I found it inspiring. I envied him, sometimes, even. He had… suffered so much, being the outcast that he was, and still he never stopped believing. Even after we were stranded for months, he still believed that this would be part of a greater heavens plan – that is the phrase you humans use, is it? – and that everything would make sense as long as we stuck to T’Kuvmas believes.”

She smiled again, sad and so full of tenderness and love Katrina would have believed was not possible for her species mere two weeks ago.

,,He was never a particulary good warrior, or fitting the model of how a Klingon should be, neither in character nor in looks. Just… just like me. But… he was strong in a whole other sense. Innocent, maybe.

He always doubted at himself and his choices, but that made him an so much better leader than somebody who just always believes themselves to be right.

This may sound like an insult to you, but he was such a sweet man. Just the way he talked, as if to keep back the sharper tones to prevent him from drawing any attention…”

,,Oh dear, you really fell hard for him…”, Katrina mumbled sympatically.

,,Yes..”, now, she sounded close to crying, ,,I thought I would have finally been over it by now, but… it all comes back. I miss him.”

,,Of course you do. I takes awfully long to overcome love, but it will hurt lesser and lesser with time.”

,,I know. But still….”

,,Shh. Its okay…”

 

At the third night, L’Rell still laid there quiet and cramped but breathing too shallowly and fast to truly be asleep. By now, Katrina didn’t managed to ignore her anymore, and every rustle of the sheets as she restlessy turned around pulled her out of her ministrations of the surroundings scans. And as she glanced over to her again, seeing her only clunched tight into the sleeping bag, strangely small for such a big woman, she couldn’t bear it any longer.

,,L’Rell?”

,,I thought that if I do not move I will perhaps fall asleep.”, her voice sounded flatter than she had ever heard from her, flat and shallow. She didn’t move even a tiny bit.

Only now Katrina realized that she did not worry about having an sleep-deprived and possible deeply lost in her painfull thoughts co-pilot. She genuinely felt with L’Rell, and that it hurt her to see her like this. Fear crept up in her; she was loosing the distance she needed, and what did it said of her that she felt with somebody who tortured people and who had possibly done so many other crimes?

But she would have to fight back this feeling later, for now she only had to deal with this situation.

,,Is it the situation with Voq?”, a shake of her head, ,,Your slaughtered crew? You can talk with me about it, and I could help you to deal with your thoughts. This is my profession, after all. Of course, only if you want to, and it doesn’t means that I wanted to devalue your strength with asking to help, if your culture sees it like this, in my culture these things are not meant like this.”

L’Rell continued staring at the fast movers wall, and Katrina already thought that she would just hide her pain in herself as ever.

But then she said with a voice so quiet and flat that she could hardly hear it: ,,I still see their faces. Silrek. Her face was so peaceful. Torak, his guts spilled all over the floor. And I try to say to myself that they only mutilated him like this afterwards, and that he died an quick death, but… It is my profession to know how to cause somebody pain, and I can’t forget how horribly painful and slow it is to die of such a wound.”

She breathed in deeply, trying to dispel the feeling of nausea that rose in her. What should she say to a crime as gruesome as this?

,,I am sorry.”, she mumbled, ,,But that you think about it means that you are already processing it, which is a healthy thing to do that will ultimately make you able act as efficiently as before.”, she still wanted to add some techniques to distract her from this painful thoughts when she needed to sleep, but L’Rell already almost hissed: ,,That doesn’t eases their pain!”

,,No, of course not.”, Katrina mumbled sympatically, ,,I thought it would reassure you that you are healing and thus able to fight back. You are still alive. And you are on your way to escape. That means that you will be able to revenge them.”

,,Yes.”, L’Rells voice still sounded quite flat. But after that she didn’t said anything more, and Katrina wondered if she had actually managed to fall asleep indeed. Until she heard that her breathing was too flat and panicked for that.

,,You can do equations in your head or try to remember every single detail from a movie or book in chronological order to distract your mind from these painfull thoughts, and if doing these techniques in your head isn’t enough, you can listen to an audio book or music.”

,,Even that would always lead my mind back to their deaths.”

Katrina tried to guide her trough some more invasive techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxion and the 5-4-3-2-1-technique, but at each of them L’Rell lost concentration on it halfway trough and hissed and swore exhaustedly that it didn’t use anything and that she already knew and had tried some of them (“Do you really think I could have survived so long in such a brutal society if I didn’t even knew distracting stuff like that?!”), and so Katrina searched her mind after something else.

,,For some people physical touch can bring them out of their though cycles. If this is not a taboo in your culture, I didn’t wanted to embarrass you.” She had learned her lesson about touch and comforting in foreign cultures the hard way, and she still thought back in embarrassment at that flustered Vulcan.

,,It isn’t.” She wasn’t sure if she was relieved about that or had wished the other way.

,,Okay, then.”, she programmed the consol to make alert at the slightest abnormality, then she walked over to L’Rell.

Hesitantly, she sat down beside her and placed an hand on her arm, gripping her and stroking her nervously with her tumb.

She was not sure what she had expected, but certainly not that L’Rell would snuggle up to her folded legs, easing notably. Her body was firm, her spine stack against Katrinas knees. Strange, how vulnerable and small such a huge, muscular woman from a warrior race could look like.

,,It does not dispel it completely… but it makes it  somehow lesser present.”

And very gently, she took Katrinas arm and laid it around her, pressing her hand and lower arm to her chest like an comfort pillow.

With heavily beating heart and an painful awareness of how fucking _strange_ this situation was, Katrina slowly laid down behind her, pulling her arm tighter around her and snuggeling up to her back. L’Rell signed happily. Her back was firm with muscles just like everything she had touched until now was, but just like her shoulder harder than it should been, with bones flat under the skin where actually no ribs or spine should be.

It was a slightly awkward position, not just because she was actually. really. in truth. cuddling with a Klingon, but also because L’Rell was so much taller than her. Katrinas legs were somewhere over her butt so that she wasn’t able to bent them but just had to keep them unnaturally straight, and no matter what she did, there was no place for her head, either L’Rells shoulder was in the way or the ridges at the back of her head stuck into her forehead.

But she was warm and firm and wonderfully soft at all the right places (she realized as she laid her lower arm at her waist, over her stomach), and listening to her slowing breathing and feeling her heartbeat was soothing. They just laid there like this, and for a moment, for the first time Katrina forgot that she had been captured by the enemy and now was fleeing with said enemy and would very likely don’t make it back to Federation. She just concentrated on L’Rells breathing and heartbeat, at the way her chest rose and fell, and how firm her lower arms and how surprisingly soft and gentle the fingers that kept stroking over her hands were. It felt safe and peaceful.

Katrina entwined her arms out of the younger womans grip and gently laid them closer around her. There was something full and soft under her hands and lower arm, and for a moment she wondered why her body was so soft so high up – and then it struck her, and she pulled her arms back, gulping and embarrassed.

,,I… I am sorry. Please don’t kill me.”, she managed to say, her voice far quieter than usually.

But L’Rell only laughed, loud and dirtily. Katrina was so relieved that she fell into laugher, too.

,,We are both women. Things like this happen. And we actually do know these parts from ourself, don’t we?”

Katrina almost answered that there may be the same basic anatomy for all biological women, but the particularities were obviously different, especially between her and L’Rell, and furthermore she did not know how much of these characteristic differed for Klingons, but this would have made the situation only even more awkward. And so she loosed her grip and shifted back a little bit. But since L’Rell didn’t commented anything more, she stayed like this.

,,Come closer, little human. Or do you fear me to much?”, L’Rell growled softly, and shifted closer against Katrinas chest and upper body.

Through the thin shirt, she could feel powerful muscles shifting. Her broad shoulders and back were pressed against her chest, so firm and strong. It felt so much like Gabriels back, like the way he had pressed himself against her, his naked skin and the wonderful musculature beneath it against her bare chest and her waiting breasts…

Suddenly, she was desperately wet. She breathed in slowly and tried continue breathing and laying as if nothing had happened. How long hadn’t she thought at that anymore? She hadn’t even realized, but this must be the first time perhaps since a month that she had actually been secure and free enough to feel desire.

God damn, she just wished she wouldn’t perceive how good L’Rell felt like even despite ridges everywhere but just remind how Gabriel had felt like, and not getting both blurring into each other like this. She cursed her body.

She could feel her back muscles flex again as she relaxed, and her earthy, heady scent filled her nose. But after some awful tense minutes, L’Rell still hadn’t said anything, and slowly the secureness and coziness came back. She actually dozed away slightly, and as she awoke again, she still felt unusually calm and peacefull.

 

At the next morning, L’Rell looked just as haunted, but at least not so worn-out anymore. And she actually reacted to what Katrina did, watching her carefully and answering imediantly. They did their usual daily routine, one controlling the sensors, the other eating, and then the other way around, and then keeping quiet, only interrupted by short dialogues. Katrina was describing some every-day life details from home, unimportant, tactically useless things.

Suddenly, L’Rell said: ,,How fast you expand your borders under the pretense of scientific exploration, how you manage to bring together the forces and intellect of so many planets, how you all move in one line despite your differences…  Sometimes I envy your Federation.”

Katrina looked up, completely taken by surprise: ,,What?”

,,Look at us. We are no longer the honorable, brave warriors of the old tales. We are just a bunch of quarreling, warring savages.  Our so called honor is only killing the most enemies and ruling over as much as possible, not fighting for a cause no matter the hardships and protecting those who deserve it.”, she spoke so full of hate and disgust Katrina would have never thought about being possible for someone so proud about her race. Her accent came through stronger than usual, making the words harsh and rough. ,,There wasn’t a time of peace since generations. We start one pointless war after another. We fight the Rihannsu, we fight the Orions, we fight Federation, we even fight fucking Tribbles, and if none of them are available, we just fight each other for no sensible reason at all.

We don’t even have an actual education system. What civilized people doesn’t has education?”, she laughed, and it almost sounded like sobbing.

,,Admiral… Katrina, are there sometimes moments where you despise your people?”

,,Since this war started… all the time.”

An alarm from one of the sensors started beeping. Katrina ran too the sensor console.

,,It’s a ship a lighthour from us. From the bit the sensors can measure, its around frigate-sized”, she controlled the readings again, hoped that there was any way that she had misinterpreted that, ,,and with an energy signature that can almost impossibly be anything else than weapon systems and a warship-like shield deflector.”

,,Any more details?”

,,No. The sensors are not sharp enough.”

L’Rell hissed out several Klingon swears.  ,,You take the helm and sensor control, I do the gunnery.”, she ordered.

,,Okay.”

She changed the few parameters she got, in hope to get better resolution.  ,,Any way to disguise us?”

,,Our deflector is to small to change our signature enough. Not at this distance.”

,,And we are in the midst of interstellar space, there is nothing to hide for lightyears and warping to the next solar system would only draw attention to us even more.”

For a few tense, straining minutes they didn’t speak, only checking their consoles alert, Katrina monitoring the curse of the frigate – it was still on its initial curse, but coming closer and closer.

,,How exactly do sensors on a Klingon ship operate? If we consider the specifics, we might have a better chance to figure out how to escape unnoticed.”

,,At Warp through the distortion the gravital field caused to the space-time continuum and with it the ships warp bubble due its gravity, which indicates mass, density and compostition of the object, and radiation over subspace. Under lightspeed the specific radiation unique to the different elements and the way background radiation is blocked or partially goes trough it.”

,,Could we turn off every radiation source and pretend to be an asteroid?”

,,They are too close. And we have the wrong composition and too much heat for an object this far in interstellar space, not even considering the scarcity of such occurrences.”

,,But… this is mostly metals, just like in an asteroid, right? And…”, and then it struck her ,,…an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. We have to blow out as much as we can possibly sustain into space. And limit our temperature.”

,,It’s gas. It doesn’t contributes enough to the overall density to make a difference.”

,,But it’s the only thing we can change.”

,,Hmm.”, L’Rell sounded uncomfortable, ,,Put on your space suit.” She already stood up to get hers.

Katrina rushed to the romulan space suit, entangled it and turned it on the front where the fastenings where. It was made of several pieces, and she pulled the trouser part over her legs and hips, and grabbed the boots, clicked them into place with an metal buckle, and then strapped on the chest-piece, the arms and gloves, the air supply and finally the helmet. It was notably tighter than the space suits she was used to, almost uncomfortably so, probably using only artificial muscles and not air pressure too for compressing. She closed and opened her hands, tipped on controls to see if they were working, and finally connected the air supply with the helmet. But nothing happened. She touched the button again, and suddenly, she still felt air on her face but as she breathed in there was nothing, and her lung cramped.

,,To high oxygen level detected, supplemented with nitrogen to prevent toxic level”, the text on the front of the glass said.

She ripped the helmet off, grabbed the control panel on her arm and corrected the composition, but the next try ended just as the one before.

,,Something isn’t working with my suits sensors, perhaps even with the software.”

L’Rell, already in her space suit including headgear, hasted to her.

,,But we checked it. Must be a damage to small to detect.”

They both hastily searched for anything that could have caused the defect, then L’Rell tried to find the error in the programming causing this false analysis. Without success.

Finally, L’Rell grabbed the air supply tube, pulled it out and connected it with a second one from her supply. Now, something hissed inside Katrinas helmet, and she already thought it was successful, as she realized that she still couldn’t breath. And there was L’Rells coughing over the link, too.

,,What happened?”, she asked, Helmet in her hands, eyes wide.

,,I…  hrrrg…something’s wrong with the Carbondioxide return circuit…”, she opened her helmet, gasping, eyes fluttering around as if she had been shortly before fainting.

,,I think it mistook the second tube.”, she changed something at the bottles on her back, but concluding from the panel on the left side of her vizier and her swearing and more and more panicked working, it was not working.

,,Oooh FUCK!”, Katrina yelled.

,,We have to do it without space suits. Limit pressure, temperature and concentration to the absolute least we can survive.”

,,Shiiit…”, Katrina hasted to her console. At least the other ship was still far away enough, but hardly so.

She tried to remember the composition of the lowest non-letal concentration of oxygen a human was able to survive. Ten percent at an air pressure of 12 bar. Temperature drop to -80 °C. All in a continual drop in one minute.

The computer said something in Klingon. From the tone and context it seemed to be a warning that this environment would be letal over longer time.

L’Rell barked something at it, most likely an authorization to do it nevertheless.

,,Keep the space suits on.”, L’Rell ordered, ,,If we huddle against the warp core, we will stay warm longer.”

,,Good idea.”, she ran to the back of the shuttle, where bulky walls and machine parts covered the view at the stars, only leaving a small space between them in which the still slightly blue glowing warp core was located.

She put off her glove, hold her hand over it. Indeed, it was still radiating warmth, but not the skin-burning heat the matter-antimatter annihilation normally created.

She ducked under a pipe and crawled in between the engines.

The air was already cold as if in deepest winter and she noticed that she had started breathing faster.

How could L’Rell possibly fit into this crampy little chink too?

She was still typing orders into the console, programming it to inform them about every direction change of the ship, every radiation and every energy level change of it.

It became colder and colder. Katrina huddled against the warp core, but even if her head was the only exposed body part, she started shivering. The air felt like tiny needles of ice against her face, and every breath seemed to freeze all the way down into her lungs.

She wanted to crawl out and pick some piece of fabric to cover her nose and mouth with it, but even this tinny movement made her dizzy. It felt as if her brain and eyes were swapping around freely in her head, and she blinked to expel the feeling. It didn’t help. Her thoughts were muddled too, as if she had to catch them through thick mud. Her rash breathing sounded to flat and to fast in her own ears, but no matter how deeply and fast she breathed, she couldn’t get enough air.

In this condition, any fight with the other ship would extremely difficult.

She finally got hold on some fabric – her Starfleet jacket – and stumbled back. Her fingers and legs felt dull, as if they would only half belong to her body.

She actually had to concentrate to spot L’Rell in the mess of blurring, waveing forms. She was finally finished with the console, and got up to join Katrina at the last warmth in this shuttle.

She stemed herself up, slow and breathing heavy with effort, and as she stepped towards the warp core, her leg simply gave way under her and she could hardly catch herself.

She grabbed for the shuttles wall, and immediately collapsed against it, shivering and barely keeping herself standing.

,,There isn’t…”, raspy, hasty, panicked breathing, ,,…isn’t… enough air.”

Somehow, she managed to stumble further. Katrina could see the panic in her eyes, her open mouth and how unnaturally fast and cramped her chest rose and sunk. Her skin was now fully grey, no trace of brown left.

,,My skin… it feels like needles everywhere. Can’t feel my legs. I’m… I’m anoxic. Not enough oxygen.”, her eyes widend in horror, already dulled by her fading consciousness, she gasped for breath.

And then Katrina realized. Enhanced durability through redundancies for almost every important organ. More organs needing more oxygen. Of course.

,,I’m fainting…”, and now she truly did fall, sliding down the glass wall without any attempt to catch herself aside from one hand touching after the window to slow and to shaky to stop her fall. Her eyes found Katrina for a moment, an empty starring without actually seeing anything. Her eyelids fluttered, as if trying to fight the urge to close them.

A thought made its way through the mud, blurred and hard to catch but filling her with fear: If this they needed more oxgen… if this was to less… would it damage her brain? How long would it take to be irreparable? She had neither the knowledge nor equipment to tend any damages. L’Rell would have had. L’Rell would be the one who needed medical attention.

With her limbs tremebling as if this would be incredibly difficult, she managed to crawl, pull herself towards Katrinas recess. Time and thoughts and senses blurred into each other so that Katrina could not estimate how long she needed, and the whole time the image of L’Rell with parts of her brain dead haunted her. Only a shadow left of the person she once was, everything becoming to complex, intellect being shrinked to the most simple instincts, having to relearn even how to speak or how to move, if that was possible at all… She didn’t wished this to anyone. And L’Rell relied on her intelligence, on her knowledge and slyness, it would take so much away from her. What a terrible fate.

Through the thick liquid in her mind Katrina realized she didn’t feared for her as for an random person or because she needed her intellect. She feared for her as for somebody… who meant something to her. She didn’t wants to have to witness how this woman faded away.

Finally, L’Rell was close enough for Katarina to grab her and pull her beside her against the warp core – cooling fastly, but still wonderfully warm in air so could that it felt like chunks of ice against every exposed skin.

L’Rell gagged and gulped as if she would feel nauseous. Her eyelids fluttered. Shit, hopefully she would not vomit, how could they ever got this spell of the shuttle? Not even to mention that she seemed close to suffocating without that already. Her raspy breathing was desperation.

Katrina wanted to reassure here that she would be alright… that… that this had been the right tactic. But speaking would have made her so dizzy, consumed to much oxygen. And so she just padded her arm reassuringly.

Should she release a bit of the oxgen left? But how would… - the thought got lost in the mist – how would she do that… wouldn’t it create a energy signature the war ship could detect? Could she… could she perhaps… But she didn’t manage to get a clear enough thought.

Her own dizziness, coming and going in waves that made her feel as if the ground had become liquid and moving, the muddled, tangled thoughts and the numbness creeping up her limbs, L’Rells flat panting mixed with her own and the occonasional status signals of the computer all blurred together, so that Katrina couldn’t tell if just minutes or hours passed by. Were they racing or were they standing, was she truly on a spaceship or had everything just been an bad dream? Was she actually floating trough space without space suit and life support system? Where was she? How had she got here?

The computer announced the next position of the frigate, and already as it ended and she had rated the distance as safe, the words dissolved and drowned in the thick mud, and she couldn’t have said how many of these status signals had been there or even what this one had said. Hours or minutes passed, blurred and teetering, and nothing truly existed beside the warp core against her body, the floor underneath her, the warmth of her space suit and L’Rell beside her.

Would the war ship come to close? Were they actually able to fight in such a case? Would they even survive this?

And then, finally, the computer announced that the warship was out of sensor reach, and Katrina weakly ordered to release their spare oxygen. Nothing happened, and it took long until she understood that it probably wouldn’t react to orders in English.

L’Rell coughed out the order. It took her three attempts until it was understandable enough for the shuttle to react.

It did not happen as fast as the dropping of air pressure before. The air became more breathable only slowly, and they continued sitting against the warp core and waited.

,,Thank you for not killing me as you had the chance to.”, L’Rells voice cut trough the headache and nausea from far to less oxygen.  The ship must have been away now and the last parts of their oxygen supply were still released in the life support systems again, but the air was still far to thin.

Katrina realized that with this vulnerability, L’Rell finally gave her the soft spot and connection she had tried to create, and that this was her moment to use it. But it seemed that she had failed the tightrope walk, because she could only say: ,,Thank you for… for escaping with me and trusting me.”

They sat nestled in each other for a long time, and it took long before L’Rells desperate, raspy breathing had returned to normal. Only now Katrina realized that she hold her hand, and that her head laid on her shoulder, her forehead ridges brushing against her neck. And despite everything she should have done, she felt herself lean into the touch, searching the warmth and comfort L’Rell provided. Her breath stroke over her skin, pleasantly warm in the icy air. Their faces were so close, closer than she ever had been an Klingon before. Closer than she had ever thought could not scare her.

And then, L’Rell tilted her head just a little and bent forward. Her skin felt to leathery and raw at the scars, her body slightly off at all the places where muscles should have been but only hard bone ridges were, she was so alien that she sometimes felt like not even another person, but something entirely else, to sly to be an animal, but also to alien to be a person. But her lips felt absolutely human, thought. Soft, full lips, and she kissed her softly, softer than Katrina had expected her species could. Her tongue caressed hers, carefully exploring her. Her large, strong hands stroke trough her hair. And Katrina felt herself lean in and stroke carefully over the scales at the beginning of L’Rells spine and the leathery skin of her neck.

They kissed each other for what seemed an very long time, slowly, carefully. But as the oxygen and warmth returned to the ship, Katrina found herself pressing her body harder against L’Rells, running her fingers under her suit and over the line of her collar bone, and L’Rell pressed her tongue deeper in Katarinas mouth, grabbing the back of her head, the other hand rushing down her back. A quite little voice screamed alarm inside Katrina, she shouldn’t do this, she shouldn’t, needn’t let herself become so attached to an enemy, and she shouldn’t let her touch her so intimately, didn’t she know what she had done? But the fear battled with the pleasure of her touch.

And then, L’Rells hands pushed under her suit with one sudden movement, and her touch seemed like an cage from one moment to the other. She tried to pull away, give herself time to grasp the new situation, but L’Rells arms hold her in their embrace like a chain, pulling her even closer to her. And now, Katrina actually panicked, and somehow managed to thrust her elbow against the others stomach and leap up and spring away from her.

Her heart raced like a drum. What had she done?

L’Rell stared at her, still sitting, and there was an vulnerability and hurt in her expression that didn’t fit to her sharp features and strong, heavy frame.

,,I am sorry. You don’t have to fear me. I would never do anything you don’t want to, I respect you to much to do.”, she said with heavy accent.

Fear still sting in Katrinas chest, and she knew that she shouldn’t do this, but she couldn’t help but whimper: ,,Like you did for your prisoners?”

Suddenly, all the things she had actually known but always refused to believe forced their way into her mind: ,,Don’t think just because you were treating me humanely I believe that you were like this with them too. They sent you to interrogate me because they knew you were skilled in this, and I am aware with which… techniques this is accomplished. And… that is one of the most popular. Don’t pretend you care about consent at all.”

Her stomach turned in fear of what L’Rell would do after she had confronted her like this, but even more at the thought that she had actually kissed someone whose job had been to break and humiliate and traumatize people. Had kissed the very lips that had probably committed the most horrible crime she could think of.

Something inside L’Rells eyes broke, shattered and sharp and dangerous as glass shards.

,,Do you think I wanted that? Do you think I didn’t had been haunted by those I tortured in the first years? See their faces, hear their voices, feel their pain?”

,,And I shall pity you for that?”, but the worst thing was that she actually did. She felt sorry for everything L’Rell had lost, and what kind of terrible society forced a young woman to learn how to be not affected by the agony of tortured people? Or was she now truly emposing her cultures standards on others? But how could something like this be just in any culture?

,,You choose too!”

,,How can you pretend that you never did anything terrible in a war, admiral? You play judge for whole civilizations, use your psychological knowledge to manipulate and foresee the behavior of your political players? In which way is what I do any worse than that? _We_ are at least honest about how terrible we are.”

She was hit so unprepeared by this that it took her a moment to answer: ,,Starfleet is a peaceful organization dedicated to exploration.”

,,Do those you ‘explored’ see that the same way?”

,,We don’t dispose our own believes and rules on foreign cultures, our prime directive forbids interfering with other peoples and even in the few cases we have to we only step in if a group of people is harmed by their behavior.”

,,How can you be arrogant enough to label your own cultures morals as universal applicant?”

Katrina wanted to reply that this would be obvious, because there were some things that just were universally bad, but then she became aware that she still had nothing to actually prove that they were not only like this from her own federation perspective she had no chance of escaping. The truth was, she could never truly know. She could only hope that she had done the right thing.

,,Federation expands faster than any other nation. You tell you would simply explore regions where no one has been before. But there had been people before. Those who lived there. And you claim you would scientifically examine them, and already it is part of your territory and you plan further expeditions from there. Did you never wonder why every single other mayor power is either at war or extremely wary of you? Despite Federation being oh-so-peaceful?”

Now she had nothing to argue against anymore. In a way, it was true. And she could understand how threatening it must seem to alien peoples, especially to some like the Klingons who had probably hardly ever known peaceful expansion, if ever.

Katrina breathed out angrily, and started taking off the romulan space suit without looking at L’Rell again. Silly and pointless, she thought at her the whole time, just how deeply it had scared her to lose her and what they had done together. Despite everything else being blurry and hard to remember in any chronological order, she could still feel every detail of their kiss. Did oxygen deprivation also cloud ones judgment? That must have been it, that and the unpredictable psychological side effects of surviving an potential deadly event together. It had just been an strange incident. Yet even with that in mind she did not feel disgust and amusement at the memory of how her lips and tongue and the smooth skin of her face had felt like, or at the echo of that time where she had cuddled against her back, or the security of feeling her grip. It had felt wonderful. Not like something that could have happened in such a dark time. Not like something that could, should have happened between different species on the opposite sites of a war.

She shouldn’t have done it. She shouldn’t have been so inappropriate, not with a war criminal and torturer like L’Rell, and she certainly shouldn’t have enjoyed it. This wouldn’t happen again.

But still she hoped it would, she realized. It had been such a beacon of happiness and joy and hope in this dark time, risky and new in a good way. Somehow, it had felt even more genuine than the last time with Gabriel, where she had been aware of his tension and changes after he had lost the Buran and something about their interaction had felt off, threatened by his importance as Captain of the Discovery and her duty to take the ship away from him when he would be mentally to damaged to continue. Had he actually tried to get her out of the way to keep his command? The thought had haunted her at the beginning of her imprisonment and she had become very good at pushing it away, and so she did now, too.

But the memory of her kiss with an enemy woman was still there. Was she already at risk of being compromised?

L’Rell ripped her out of her thoughts: ,,We just entered the area directly behind the front.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like the angsty moments and the awkward flirting in this chapter. And oh my, it was so difficult to think trough what exactly all has to go wrong for to rather classical “huddeling for warmth” scence to happen, but by now I love how much like hard science fiction that scene sounds, and I’m also quiet happy with how the kiss turned out
> 
> And sorry, after the whole disturbing mess in canon with Ash, I just had to brought the issue of consent and L’Rell being an horrible person up, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with taking this ship any further if I hadn’t
> 
> The weird talk about the harpie-myth was originally planed to head in another direction but then the characters wanted that it ended in this talk about religion, and I had simply no idea how to change it again, so I let it like it was, even if I am not sure if it truly contributes anything useful to the story
> 
> It could be that I already upload the fifth chapter at Wednsday depending on how fast I am with editing it, so that I am finished with publishing the whole story before the second season of Discovery is out and maybe contradicts all my backstory for L’Rell


	5. 5: Run From The Light

**5: Run From The Light**

Only as she was literally flying right trough it, see it all over the sensors, Katrina truly realized just how huge the supply lines directly behind the Klingon front were. Of course she had read intelligence reports on their movements, but it was another thing entirely to see dozens and dozens of signals from freighters so big that in federation space she would have already been intrigued about their size, and lots and lots smaller space crafts swarming in between them, from smaller freighters to fast movers to weapon transports.

They must need immense amounts of sustenance. Of course, a double set of organs didn’t only make it easier to endure damage but also needed more energy to be kept alive. Katrina may have found an promising clue in how her people were superior to them. They must be so much more vulnerable to shortcuts in food and oxygen supply, they were in lethal danger in areas where humans and other federation species would still be able to thrive….

She looked at the back of L’Rells head and suddenly felt guilty. But it was necessary, she had to remind herself, they were still at war and even if L’Rell could probably help and was an person she actually felt sympathy for, they were killing Federation citizens, and the more tactics to combat them the better. It still suddenly had become the idea of attacking and killing people like L’Rell, Sowl, Mother Duraq, Iqos or those folks at the bar, killing L’Rells people, instead of killing soldiers of an fascist empire.

She tried to dispel the thought and concentrated on the movements of the other ships instead. There were so many of them, she and L’Rell had to be alert; every second one of this ships could recognize something strange about an fast mover so far away from any mother ship.

It wasn’t until after L’Rells first alone-shift since entering the supply lines as Katrina took a break to sleep, and hours into their doubled shift afterwards that she detected several small fighters that docked at other ships. She would have ignored them, but L’Rell suddenly was scared.

,,But where can we escape?”, she sounded truly nervous.

,,Escape from what?”

,,The patrols. They control every ship that wasn’t declared to their house, possibly taking items they want when they are allready in the ship.”

,,They’re raiders and police in one?”

,,Yes. And they will find us. We maybe can outfight one of them, but there are others and then their mother ships will know about us too.”

,,Shit”, erratically, Katrina kept scrolling through the scans of their surroundings. There was a medium-sized freighter near them, but that was it. No asteroids, not planets or moons or nebula to hide.

,,…and we can’t hide behind this freighter.”

L’Rell light up: ,,Actually, we can. Our ships configuration is not too uncommon to be seen as just an ordinary patrol ship. If we pretend to be just another patrol to the freighter captain and dock at their ship, they won’t notice us.”

,,But I’m human, and with your scar you are not exactly unremarkable.”

L’Rell grinned in a way that was somehow both cunning and affectionate: ,,You have their space suit and your features are quite rihannsu-like.”, her hand came up to touch Katrinas cheek. Her fingers left traces of pleasant prickling, ,,With your eyebrows and ears hidden, as with the helmet of your space suit, you pass easily as one of them. As for me”, her grin became a lot more “mad scientist”, ,,I have already some ideas.”

,,Okay.”, Katrina said, and because she had the sudden impulse that this could very likely be the last time she was able to say it, she grabbed L’Rells shoulder – it seemed to important to simply say it without bodily contact – and said: ,,I am glad that I got to know you, and it finally made me realize that you and your people are much more than just an enemy of federation.”

And she had sworn herself that this had been just an one-off, that it would never happen again, but she had the invincible impuls to, and L’Rell was looking at her like that, understanding and proud and elevated and smiling slightly, and leaning towards her, and so she bent forward and kissed her.

It was a hard, passionate kiss, all tongues pressing inside the others mouth and pushing against each other, and she was shocked by how deep it felt. It didn’t felt as if they would have only kissed once before, in sort of a half-delirium, as if they weren’t in this strange relationship limbo of respecting and caring for each other and temporarily working together but technically still being enemies.

As they parted, she had to catch for breath, and oh, seeing L’Rell do the same, her eyes still clouded by passion, was such an gorgeous image.

,,I am honored to know you, too”, she said hoarsely, ,,and for a woman as powerful and just as you accepting me.”

Katrina was empty of words, so she just smiled back. Then she turned and started to put on the romulan space suit. From the edge of vision she saw L’Rell searching for something in the shuttle, then coming towards her. It was one of her torture instruments, something that looked like an awfully wrong shaped scalpel.

,,No!”, Katrina shouted and stumbled backwards, as if that could keep L’Rell from anything. She needed her good humor for her plans in Federation space, surly she wouldn’t…? But L’Rell came closer, the blade of the instrument shimmering.

,,Hold still! I just need a strand of your hair.”

,,For disguise?”, her own voice still sounded shrill.

,,For what else?”, L’Rell grabbed a strand of hair and with a swift movement of the scalpel it was cut off.

She already wore most parts of her helmet, just the transparent visor was still up, leaving only her face uncovered. She clamped the strand underneath it, and if one didn’t knew that it truly looked as if a part of her own hair would have escaped from the headdress. Then she contemplated her reflection in the shuttles walls thoughtfully, and raised the scalpel to her own face.

Disbelieving, Katrina could only stare as she cut a few curved and crossing lines on the other side of her face, wiping away most of the blood. Her facial expression didn’t change a bit, just stayed thoughtful.

,,For my scar don’t standing out that much.”

And the fear from L’Rell was back… Despite everything they had gone trough together, she was still hell of creepy.

 

L’Rell hailed the ship, and – Katrina had found out that the romulan space suit possessed a translator – barked at them: ,,Border patrol. Prepare for docking and us coming on board.”

They glided towards the freighters lock, docked.

Katrinas heart beat painfully fast, as if it would try to escape from her chest at any moment. What if they were escaped from the patrols just to land in a fight with the freighters crew? What if the patrols found them nevertheless?

The air lock opened. Katrina positioned herself behind L’Rell, grabbed the disruptor so hard that its form notched into her palm. It hardly calmed her.

A slender, long haired man stood in the docking bay, pointing an spiked weapon at them. In her nervousness, Katrina noticed the strangest details, the business emblem on his jump suit and the way his hair shimmered and was softly curled like in a shampoo advertisement.

,,Move aside. We have to sweep your ship.”

,,You have no right to search through my ship. I am delivering supplies directly to the front, your interruption costs them precious time.”

,,You are still moving with the same speed”, L’Rell growled, slightly impatient.

,,What in gre’tor happened to your face? And what is that rihannsu doing so far in our space?”

,,None of your business.”

Katrina came a step closer to him and rose her disruptor more determined.

And then, a girl came from a hallway at the side. The mans eyes grew wide. Katrina understood why. What if this child would be involved in the fight?

,,Dad, can I have your weapon?”, she asked with a sweet voice. She looked so alike a human child, just with sharp teeth and ridges on her forehead and nose, utterly innocent. Would L’Rell actually have inhibitions to hurt a little child?

,,Go back!”, panic was in the mans voice.

,,But I want your Bat’leth! I wont go back until I get your Bat’leth!”

,,You can have it as much as you want later. But only after you go back now!”

,,You’re boring”, the child muttered, but finally went away. The man signed with relieve.

,,You don’t have the right to examine our ship!”, he repeated.

,,Actually, we have. To control if you are smuggling illegal goods like rihannsu ale to the front to sell them there.”

,,Why should I do that? To make that insufferable war of yours even longer because your soldiers are to drunk to fight? And anyway, rihannsu ale is only illegal in a few territories, and I deliberately avoided them.”

,,It is illegal here to!”

,,No?! What do you even want from me? You started this war, keep us from flying freely and without the danger of been blown out of the sky, and now you attack us for bringing cargo to the front that only exists because of you!”

Katrina was impressed, it took quite some courage to tell an supposed patrol what he was truly thinking about the war.

His hands shook a bit, and even she saw that he had not much experience with this weapon. But with every minute standing here any longer, the risk increased that a true patrol controlled the freighter too and found them. And one could never truly know what a person in utter panic might be able to do.

,,We never wanted this war. Glory and honor, pah! It only means more dangers in shipping wares and lesser earn and lesser markets for us. It does nothing to the people. How many fucking wars did you elite wield and for every one people like us suffer.”

,,You opinion on the war doesn’t matter.”, growled L’Rell, ,,Move aside, or I will make you.”

,,You have no right.”

,,Do it.”, L’Rell shifted her weight from one side to the other. Katrina grabbed her disruptor harder.

With one swift movement, the man leaped forward, swinging his weapon in one sharp rush of blades. In the absolutely same moment, L’Rell rustled forward too, and what happened next was almost to fast to see. The weapon was deflected as L’Rells staff hit his wrist.

Katrina had to pride him in the fact that he didn’t do so much as hiss under what must surly have broken his hand.

Pointing the end of her staff at his head, L’Rell paced past him. Katrina followed.

,,Now thank you. Wasn’t that difficult, wasn’t it?”

 

They were hardly twenty metres in the corridor when they heard a second ship dock.

,,What are you doing here? Another patrol? Your colleagues just arrived.”, she heard the man hiss.

,,I am not informed about another examination.”, damn. Hopefully they were just thinking that he was lying to try to get out of their investigation.

,,But that’s not my problem, isn’t it?”, he sounded much more confident than he should with his broken hand. Or maybe he just had a lot of exercise in seeming confident when he wasn’t.

,,Stay aside, man, that’ll be easier for everyone.”

From behind a shelf, Katrina caught a glimpse of the patrol. Their faces were painted with red, just as the wardens at the ship of the dead. Kols House. Shit.

And then she felt L’Rell move beside her. She was almost out of their cover. Instantly, Katrina leaped forward and grabbed her arm, slinging her own arm over her shoulder and covering her mouth.

The force of L’Rells movement pulled her almost half a meter, and she didn’t made herself any illusions that she could stop her if L’Rell didn’t cooperated.

,,They are at least six, and we are two with a stick, an half-defect disruptor and one improvised magnesia-flash grenate. You can’t win.”

,,I have to revenge my crew!”, fury and pain.

,,You would only get killed”, she whispered.

She felt L’Rell pull at her grip, weaker this time, but still to forceful for Katrina being able to actually hold her. ,,I have to revenge them!”

Somehow, Katrina managed to push her back and press herself between her and the edge of the shelf. She grabbed her shoulders at both sides: ,,Listen to me. If you attack them now, you will maybe pull two or three of them with you, but in the end, they will outforce you, and they will kill you and they will find me and kill me too or worse, and then, your crew will never be revenged. I know it is hard, but you have to hide and make it out of Klingon territory, so that one day, you can unite the houses and end this fucking war and revenge your crew.”

For a moment, she believed L’Rell would simply throw her aside and attack, saw it in the insane fury in her eyes and her clenched teeth. Then she crumpled, kicked in the air and collapsed, sobbing soundlessly, in Katrinas arms. Her fists clenched in Katrinas space suit almost ripped it in pieces, so hard she tried to get hold of it.

Katrina returned her embrace, and tried not to think at how good it felt to hold her in her arms, so good despite the danger they were in, but simply concentrate on every sound that came from the patrol.

She stroke over her head and neck and whispered softly: ,,It’s the only thing you can do. I’m sorry.”

Somewhen, she heard the patrol walk away towards the other side. They stayed in their hiding place, listening to every sound, but except for a woman who gazed bored and not thoroughly at all in their corridor, nothing happened. Finally, they heard the other shuttle leave.

Katrina relaxed her muscles. Only now she felt how cramped she had truly been.

,,What now?”, she asked.

L’Rell smiled teeth-baring: ,,We search for things we can use.”

,,We can’t just raid that poor freighter crew!”

,,Why not? Every group that sents patrols trough their territory does this, and unlike them we will only take very few. And we need several things.’’

Well, she had a point. She still didn’t liked the thought of stealing things from an innocent freighter captain, but they needed to fix her damn space suit, and a bit spare oxygen wouldn’t be bad either.

Systemically, they examined the ship, always skulking, stopping at each room to look if it was empty and then sneaking in. Somewhere near of what must been the engine room, L’Rell found some equipment useful for repairing a space suit. In a small room near the abandoned-looking mess hall they found several cans of food. Every time she found something they needed right now, a sting of shame went trough Katrina, but it was always outweight by the calculation of how badly the needed it to survive right now. At every sound she flinched, expecting someone of the patrol or a crew member would approach them, and she would have to fight. Even the slightest moment of standing still was to long. After what must have been roughly two thirds of the ship they found an quite abandoned looking room with something that must have been the most battered, grossest showers Katrina had ever seen, and some cords with clothes hanging over them. Against this, even the worst Starfleet outpost locker room was nothing. Katrina wanted to continue their search, but L’Rell stopped, and then paced towards one of the pipes and hold a hand against it. Then she seemed to have found something, because she turned to the right and bent down. It was a piece of soap. Contemplating, she turned it in her hands. 

,,You don’t really think about using the shower on a ship we currently raided and in which we hide from an hostile patrol?!”

,,First of all, the patrols left and the crew most likely doesn’t even knows we are still here. And this washing room is clearly not used as a shower anymore. We didn’t cleaned ourselves for more than a week. Who knows when we will have this luxury again.”

Katrina breathed in annoyedly, and truly registered that she indeed didn’t smelled that nice. Going back into the shuttle would be hell, now that they had been out of its stinky, thick atmosphere. Against better judgment, she sniffed at her armpits. Ugh.

,,If you like... But don’t blame me if this leads to us ending up in an embarrassing, naked brawl.”

L’Rell chuckled.

Then she walked over to one of the showers, boxed against an rusty pipe, and turned it on. The water rushing out was a lot cleaner than Katrina had expected. Checkingly, she hold a hand underneath it.

,,Very good. It is neither ice cold nor skin-boiling hot.  We are lucky.”

And then she striped off her armor as if she and Katrina had been comerades for years by now and undressed quite at ease. Katrina felt her breath catch in her troat as she pulled the rough-weaven shirt over her head and bared her broad back. Strong muscles shifted underneath the greyish-brown skin, the broad ridges running down her spine shifted and turned as she threw the shirt into the pile of her armor and opened the fastening of her bra. With an heartbeat that seemed to end straight between her thighs, Katrina realized that she was completely topless now. God damn, she had an absolutely gorgeous back.

She just hoped she hadn’t noticed her intrigued gazes. She looked away and started undressing herself, too, ignoring the weird feeling of going to be naked with a woman from her enemy species in the same room, and that the whole situation seemed like out of an bizarre lesbian interspecies porn.

She put her trousers down to the rest of her clothing and waddled to one of the showers, desperately keeping her eyes on the floor to both avoid the sigh of L’Rell and of her own nakedness that would have only reminded how very well to see she was for the other woman.

She tried to activate her shower, slammed her palm against the button as nothing happened and almost jumped as absolutely sudden a swell of hot water smacked down on her. After the first shock, it actually felt quite good.

On her left, she heard the water splash as L’Rell cleaned herself.

,,Rare that the water has an temperature that is actually not painful. Painful in the unpleasurable way.”

Did she really wanted to know what “painful in the pleasurable way” would be?

,,They must have warmed it on the engines, with the side effect of cooling them in turn. Very efficient.”

,,But wouldn’t it be boiling then?”, she asked, and they discussed technical facts as if this whole damn situation would be totally ordinary. But strangely, the longer they talked, the more it felt like this, never truly normal but possibly lesser absurd.

Somewhen, Katrina saw out of the corner of her eye how L’Rell was watching her, and finally returned her gaze, staring directly in her eyes. She smiled, and her blue seagull eyes focused on her with an unblinking intensity that almost made her shudder. And then her eyes wandered down and ran over every curve and line and detail of her body. It wasn’t her former greedy stare anymore, as if she would just be a thing she wanted. It was admiration for a person she valued. She was torn between the urge to cover herself and to clean herself in clearly suggestive moves to show L’Rell how much her gaze aroused her. She did nothing, simply closed her eyes and ran her fingers trough her hair, distracted by the knowledge that L’Rell was watching her and the throbbing in her loins.

As L’Rell finally looked away and started to dedicate herself to her own cleaning, she managed to overcome herself and took in the sight of her naked body, flown over with water.

She had to remind herself to breath as she let her gaze slip over the line of her collar bone, broad and ornamented with ridges, her abs, the ridges running down her chest, down between her glorious large breasts. Hot burning between Katrinas thighs as she instinctively imagined how it would feel to touch them, to feel their weight on her hands, kneed them and feel the full softness underneath her fingers. Her heart was pounding like mad.

The water ran in streams over her nipples and down her stomach and the curve of her hips and down her strong thighs. Whatever reason there was behind shaving their heads, it seemed to extend to the rest of body hair too.

What a strange occurrence of similar evolution how, well, human she looked, as far as Katrina could tell.

And then she realized what the fucking hell she had been doing, and focused back on the wall. Kissing was one thing, sex was absolutely another level. And yeah, she was honest with herself, she was absolutely thinking about sex.

She forced herself to look away and stop imagine how she would make out with her here and now if they weren’t fleeing and if they weren’t hiding on a strangers ship. She wished she would have been finished finally, but her hair was still long and a tangled mess, and soap didn’t seem to be very effective.

,,Shall I help you cleaning your hair?”, L’Rell suddenly said, voice low and with an soft vibration to it that ended up straight in her loins.

She was so surprised that she forgot to answer. L’Rell took that as a yes.

Katrina heard her moving behind her, felt how the flow of water changed. Was she just imagining this or could she actually feel the heat radiating off her skin?

And then her fingers touched her scalp and Katrinas breath caught. She was running them slowly trough her hair, softly massaging the soap in, an harmless, innocent touch.

But Katrina was all to aware of how close L’Rells hips were to her back. Her fingers sank deeper, briefly grazed the sensitive skin of her neck and shoulders, and she half feared and half wished that she would fully lay her hands on her skin and run them down her back and forward over her ribs and cover her tingling breasts to play with them, lower one hand down her stomach and push it between…

She had to control herself not to gasp.

However, nothing of this happened. At some point, L’Rell simply stepped back, put off her shower and used one of the clothes hung to dry to dry herself. Katrina followed her, and it was surreal how fast she wore her clothes and her Rihannsu space suit again as if nothing had happened. Only her wet hair showed that this hadn’t been just an weird fantasy of her.

 

They skulked back trough the ship, always alert and in fighting stance, still expecting the patrol to come around the corner even if they must have been away since more than half an hour by now. Katrina was so tense that she flinched and turned ready to fight at the slightest sounds, but it was only creaking of the ship.

She was almost… disappointed would be the wrong word, but still to full of tension and nervous energy she would have needed to spent as she reached their fast mover. L’Rell seemed to feel the same too, because she wasn’t still for a single moment, fingers and hands and feet moving, eyes rushing from one detail to the other.

They departed from the freighter and soon were out of the dangerous area, but she still wanted to run and move and fight, even now as the ships were far out of reach, and they finally found some solar system to hide in. She could still feel the adrenalin rush trough her body, how she needed the action and fight that L’Rell and her didn’t had to do. Restlessly she ran her fingers over her console, checking the sensors every few seconds just to do something. Once more she realized how tiny and campy the fast mover was. As she was absolutely sure that they were out of reach, she stood and climbed to the two meters of spare space behind the cockpit. L’Rells head flinched towards her. Yes, she was just as full of energy as her.

,,I just feel that I have to move.”, Katrina muttered frustrated.

Now, L’Rell rose too, stretching her arms and back.

,,Hey, do you want to do a training fight or something? Just friendly training, to expel the spare energy. I see how restless you are, too.”

The younger woman looked up, those icy cool blue eyes absolutely fixated on her, lips quirking. And then she stepped in one single powerful, elegant movement toward her, and punched after Katrina’s head.  Katrina dodged, trying to box L’Rell in the gut, but she leapt aside, attacked again.

From time to time L’Rell explained with calm voice what she had done wrong or how she could have attacked better, the younger woman never seemed to feel overbearing about her greater skill in this.

They shifted and leaped around each other, always trying to be as far away as possible from the other, but the walls of the ship stopped them more than once, and after a few minutes, Katrina had dozen of bruises because she had hit the glass. She didn’t care. Wild energy pulsated trough her, letting her hardly feel the pain at all when L’Rell hit her or when she blocked and stumbled under the raw power of the Klingon. She sweated underneath her space suit, and her hair stuck at her face. She saw pearls of sweat run down L’Rells sharp features as well, as she never left Katrina with her look, furrows narrowed, lips tight. And then Katrina missed a blow, and stumbled against L’Rell, who grabbed her then. Katrina used the short distance to smack her elbow at her flank, but L’Rell tried to kick her feet from under her, and she simply was much stronger. Katrina let herself become limp, and then, as L’Rell paused confused, grab her wrist and push it down and kick her feet from under her. She still tried to hold onto Katrina, who squirmed and pushed.

And then, they both fell, and L’Rell was on the floor underneath her, breathing hard, skin glistering with sweat. Katrina was absolutely sure that it would be easy for her to simply turn their position and fixate her under her, but she didn’t. She just smiled expectantly, eyes glittering. Katrina didn’t waste a moment to grab her wrists, fixate them with her own weight. She sat astride the warioress hips, and her armor pressed strangely against her legs trough the fabric of her clothing.

She could smell L’Rell, hear her breath so close to her, feeling her, all this power, underneath her.

She fell down upon her and kissed her, pressing her down with her weight and lips and hands. She kissed her back so hard that it almost hurt, so deep and passionately that she struggled to breath, growling softly, grabbing Katrinas neck. Wild energy of a whole other sort rushed trough Katrinas body, burning in her breasts, until finally settling in a hot pulsation in her loins. She was so close, she could actually smell the other womans arousal, sharp and musky and archaic.

She slide her hands down L’Rells neck, feeling the scar and the scales underneath her fingers. Her skin was firm and hot and sweaty. She tried to push her fingers under her armor, find a way to touch more of this intolerably sweet dark flesh. This time, L’Rell hissed, the hunger and desire in her eyes unlike anything she had ever seen. Urgently, she unclasped her armor, stripping it off impatently. She wore the army trouser and raw shirt underneath it, of course, and Katrina noticed how it accentuated her broad hips and broad shoulders and her gorgeous large breasts and heavy built, before she ran her fingers underneath it.

L’Rell parted from her.

,,Are we really doing this?”, what a contrast, her former feral passion and the insecurity in her voice.

Katrina first wanted to answer something like ,,Well, this doesn’t feels like we don’t, does it?” And then the severity of the whole situation hit her.

Shit. Her heart did one painfully heavy beat, so strong that for a moment she didn’t felt like she was able to breathe. This was too far. This was to fucking far to do with a hostile interrogator. But they had done already too much, and they had already started this, stopping now wouldn’t undo that. It didn’t mattered if they continued or not. Maybe this would haunt her for the rest of the war, but it would do it anyway, and who knew if they would actually survive the next day. Couldn’t they allow themselves a bit fun now, before it was too late?

Did she actually want this? Was that more than just Stockholm syndrome and a strange panic reaction? She listened inside her, and yes, strange as it was, she was definitely attracted to L’Rell. Desired her. She even felt… something for her, but she absolutely didn’t wanted to know what.

,,I… I think so. If you actually want something like this with a small, febble human…”, she added as a bit of her braveness came back.

,,Hmmm. You may be small, but you are a true warrioress, my Admiral.”, fastly, but still somewhat more carefully than before, she pushed her hand under Katrinas shirt and ran her pointy, claw like fingernail down her flank. The sharp sensation echoed between her thighs.

She grinned predatorily, baring her sharp teeth as Katrinas breath caught. Despite her lying underneath Katrina, everything about her made clear who truly was the more dangerous one of the two of them.

Katrina grabbed her head, pushed it back and forced her low growl silent with another kiss. It was long and deep and Katrina had to gulp for breath in between because it seemed to go on endlessly and was so wild, but damn, it was worth it. She felt L’Rells hips jerking up to meet hers.

L’Rell explored her back, ran her hands up and down her spine, grabbed her hips to press them closer against hers.

Katrina in turn tried to push her hands further under the rough fabric of L’Rells shirt, closer to her smooth, thick, hot skin. She drew circles over the flesh of her hips, feeling their softness and the underlying tension of her muscles, her hard bones and some hard alien ridges she couldn’t immediately classify underneath. But she wanted, needed to feel more. She tried to slide her hands up her back, but it was quite difficult because L’Rell was still supine.

As she finally noticed this, she pushed herself up to her elbows, and Katrina ran her hands up her spine. Hard muscles shifted underneath her fingers, so powerful. She could feel the ridges she had seen before, bone-hard, strange and utterly sexy, and followed them with her fingertips, and then, as L’Rell shifted and signed approvingly, ran her fingernails lightly over them. L’Rell moaned against her lips, and the sound made her shudder with desire.

Another low growl: ,,… how intense such a light touch can feel like. Almost stronger than truly touching…”, her accent was thicker now, and the harsh emphasis sounded definitely sexy. Katrina chuckled and repeated the motion, even lighter this time. L’Rell threw her head back a bit and gasped.

She was sitting up now, Katrina noticed, with her in her lap, her hands hungrily roaming over her stomach and hips and back. Katrina pressed her lips to her neck. Hot, soft skin and the harder one of the ridges running down her throat that tasted salty of sweat. She followed the tendons of her neck, kissing and licking. L’Rell breathed harder, a low, soft sound. Her hands found the rim of Katrinas trousers and pushed underneath it.

Fuck. She was really doing this. She was really feeling L’Rells hands on her ass, tasting her hot, salty skin, feeling her breasts against her own chest, only separated by the thin barrier of their shirts. The fabric had to go.

L’Rell must have thought the same, because one of her hands was fumbling around on Katrinas shirt, but she shifted out of the touch and smiled wickedly. Expectant, L’Rell stared at her, her focus never leaving her as if she was truly a piece of prey she was hunting.

Katrina grabbed the hem of L’Rells shirt and pushed it up, pulled it over her head. As she realized what she was doing L’Rell helped her with the sleeves, her chest rose and fell with her heavy breaths, her upper body only covered by her sport-bra like top. But Katrina had hardly time to examine it further, to get a closer look at how, despite the fabric looking quite thick and firm, her nipples were already pressing trough the cloth, because then L’Rell had already hastily pulled it off.

A hot shudder ran through her sex.

Her breasts felt firm and heavy and yet so soft. L’Rell moaned sharply as she kneaded them, searching for hold on the full flesh and pressed, a strangely mewling sound.

,,Harder… Please…” She was all too willing to obey. L’Rell fell down upon her, pressing her mouth on her neck, biting and kissing so hard that it hurt  - but oh, such a good pain – and ripping her shirt and her bra off her in the same movement.

The warm air of the shuttle grazed her bare breasts, and hardly a moment later L’Rell was already touching her, stroking her thumb over her nipples, sending shudders of pleasure trough her chest.

Suddenly, her mouth was over her ear, her hot breath ghosting against it, her voice rough and harsh with her heavy accent: ,,Oh Katrina, you have such gorgeous breasts…”

,,You too”

,,Hhhmmm…”, she kissed her earlobe, and then suddenly, sharp teeth were cutting in her neck.

,,Stop!”, she ordered, only realized afterwards at the obedience in L’Rells eyes that she had laid her authority and furry as an Admiral in her voice. A bit, but only the slightest bit, more friendly, she issued: ,,We do this after my rules. You will not bite, or hit, or do whatever else sadistic tendencies may be seen as arousing in your culture, and you will not have one of your creepy moments!”

L’Rell chuckled hungrily: ,,I could make you feel pain so sweet that you will beg for more like Voq did…”

The images of L’Rell and her lover this brought into her head were definitely arousing, she couldn’t deny that.

,,No!”, she ordered nevertheless.

Another teeth-baring smile, a defiant sparkle in her eyes. And from then on there was no more hesitation, or perhaps no more moments of letting themselves time to hesitate.

Their trousers and underwear came off, too, stripped down hastily and rumpled up to the rest of their clothing. It was so strange straddling this naked alien woman, feeling her bare skin graze over hers as she pressed her body against hers, but also so consequent, somehow.

L’Rell closed her eyes, brought her head closely to her skin and took in her scent. Her nostrils flared. A low growl escaped her. It was utterly hot.

Instinctively, Katrina rocked her hips back and forth, and she could feel L’Rell shift under her as well. Feeling her hard muscles move underneath her let the pressure in her loins only increase. She let one hand slide down from tracing the lines of her ridges and stroke over her thigh. A flinch, a mewling sound, deep and alien, and L’Rell pulled her harder to her and pushed her hand in between her thighs.

Damn. Oh damn. Whoa, it felt so good.

,,So eager, hmmm?”, L’Rell growled, and Katrina hated that she found nothing else to respond than an anticipating sigh. And then her hand started to move, fast, hard strokes. The pressure, actual, real pressure, the wonderful hardness against her sex made her gasp and groan, rock her hips against L’Rells fingers. Her claw-like fingernails scratched a bit, but not so much that it bothered and not so much that the pleasure of her touch did not outweigh it by far.

Hungrily, she grasped for something, anything of L’Rell to touch, to return that passion, and kissed her again, short, hasty because they had to gasp for air before they could deepen it. She ran her fingernails over her flank and hip and thigh in this deliberately light and all the more intense touch she seemed to like so much. Her other hand followed the tendons of her neck, caressed all the places there she herself would love to be touched at and felt her pulse race underneath her fingers. Her breathing had become a growling rasp already now.

She had started running her mouth over Katrinas neck and collar bone again.

The pressure rose more and more violently in her. She heard herself actually moan and grimaced in pleasure and didn’t care.

She managed to press one hand between them, to touch L’Rells breasts, so hot and firm and heavy. Hungrily, she bent forward and pressed her mouth down on the ridges of her collar bone, nibbling and kissing, cherishing the feral gasps she ecclited. L’Rell arched her body towards her. So that it was not that big contortion to go even lower.

As her lips closed around her nipple, L’Rell actually screamed, an utterly strange, mewling wail that went only louder as she flicked her tongue over her. That part of her felt very soft and pliable, so different to the smooth but firm rest of her skin. Hungrily, she kissed it harder, nibbled and finally ran her tongue over this tender place right below she herself loved to be touched. Another howl of pleasure.

Her fingers moved harder against her, bending, and suddenly the ankle of her touch was…. Katrina felt herself flinch and shudder, so close, so damn close to coming.

They were lying again, L’Rell sprawled out on the sleeping bag, Katrina on top of her.

L’Rells hips pressed up against her body, she was rubbing herself against Katrinas leg. She could feel the hot wetness soaking her thigh.

They were moving against each other, simple instinct, it wasn’t creating remotely enough pressure to truly get them off, but damn, the friction of L’Rells dark skin against her pale beige, feeling her muscles shift underneath her, her warmth… How had her hands ended up on her ass again? Where was the wonderful pressure against her sex?

She looked down, indulged in the sight of L’Rells grey-brown skin against her own paler white, the way her muscular body shifted against her lean one. The sounds they made, their moans and gasps and howls mixed together to one sound that seemed to fill out the whole shuttle…

At some point, she sat up to look at L’Rell, see her open her mouth in a gasp and see the shudders ran trough her body as she traced her fingernails up the inside of her tigh, see her face contorted to a cry as she got just a little bit higher and started to stroke her. She was wonderfully hot and wet and so much softer than she had expected. Her scent soaked the air, archaic and musky and so damn female.

Katrina moved her fingers sometimes higher, sometimes lower, harder or more softly, slower or faster and watched every reaction, every shudder, every howl and moan and gasp, the way she furrowed her brows and opened her mouth. Finally she bent down to continue to kiss and caress her body, and L’Rell pulled her to her and touched her again and burrowed her face in her shoulder and neck.

She was not sure how she ended up lying on her back on top of L’Rell, grabbing her ass while one of her lovers hands stroke hard over her throat and the other worked between her thighs, and feeling her fast breathing against her cheek.

The hand wandered down to kneed her breast, and her fingers moved firmly and skillfully.

She could hardly breath from all the pleasure raging trough her body, felt herself tense. She felt L’Rells firm body pressed against her back, felt her rock desperately against her thigh. Her fingers made an particulary hard stroke, and finally the pleasure was to much to be contained simply in her loins and raged through her body, and she shuddered, her whole body arched. A throaty, agonized moan escaped her. From somewhere far away, she heard L’Rell groan in an echo of her climax.

She wasn’t even all that sure if she had come, the feeling had been difficult to clarify in all the foreign touch and painfully intense pleasure so that it was hard to tell, but it didn’t really mattered.

And L’Rell didn’t gave her time to recover, she already continued to touch her, softer movements this time, but sensitive as she still was now, it still felt incredible.

They continued touching, turning in their embrace to steal kisses, and L’Rell didn’t stopped stroking her until she had come several times more, harder, whimpering and clawing her hands into L’Rells body.

She relished how much her own pleasure aroused the younger woman, her thrilled gasps and heavy breathing in response to her own shudders, the way her body writhed against hers, her hasty kisses. She rocked her body desperately against her fingers as Katrina touched her again, as she thrusted, rubbed, stroked.

Each of the cries half stuck in her throat that escaped her at every breathing out, each spasm and shudder of her muscles under the sweat-dampened dark skin and clenching of her flesh echoed in Katrinas loins. L’Rell was touching her, too, but the louder her moans got and the more violently she arched towards her hands and lips, exploring all these gorgeous foreign details, the more her touch lost power, until she was to lost in her own pleasure to do anything than lie there, screaming and shuddering and rocking her hips. Her cheeks and the area just below her collar bone were flushed. Katrina licked the sweat of her neck.

Feeling her so damn tight around her fingers….

L’Rell came with a archaic cry, throaty and wavering and even louder than her previous screams, her tense muscles steel-hard, her head thrown back, electric blue eyes wide open and their gaze lost in ecstasy. Hot wetness rushed over Katrinas fingers.

She relaxed only slowly, falling back on their makeshift mattress of the sleeping bag.

Katrina continued to softly stroke her, but she pushed her hand away lighly, and so she stopped.

,,Already enough, mighty warrioress?”, Katrina mocked endearingly.

L’Rell opened her eyes again, her gaze more clouded and unfocused than Katrina had ever witnessed. Somehow made her feel secure, that she felt safe enough to let herself become this vulnerable.

,,You were good, my admiral.”, she growled satisfied, ,,Very… thoroughly.”

Now it was Katrinas turn to chuckle dirtily.

She felt a few bruises that would definitely become very obvious love marks the next day, and her loins felt numb and rugged, but it had definitely been worth it, and well, what had she expected after having sex with a Klingon?

L’Rell grabbed her around the waist and softly pulled her to her, so that Katrina was lying with her back against L’Rells chest, feeling her spoon her.

L’Rell reached for the other side of the opened sleeping bag, and drafted it over them like a blanked. Katrina snuggled up closer to her. Her arms were folded around her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, I am absolutely not sure if the shower scene was really necessary or felt simply artificial and unrealistic, but well, I even addressed how weird it is in story, and it was sexy, so it could stay.
> 
> I also needed really long to write the sex scene, and I am still a bit insecure about it. Maybe I wasn’t so comfortable with L’Rell at all, and it was also the first femslash scene I ever wrote.


	6. 6: Deep In The Water

**6: Deep In The Water**

 

It was strange, waking up to look at the star sky, stars and stars and behind them even more, more and more until infinity, with only a thin glass wall between them, and knowing to be hiding in an highly dangerous territory. The danger they were still in wasn’t reflected in the beauty ascending all around her.

She pulled the shawl closer around her and drifted back to a few moments more of this peace. L’Rell behind her hummed and shifted her arms around her waist a bit.

She must have instantly awoken from her movement, going from sleeping to fully alert without anything in between as she did. Katrina remembered her face in her sleep, still watchful but nevertheless strangely vulnerable. It had been reassuring to watch her, to know that she was still fully able to protect her even when she rested. And it had made her, well, for a lack of better words, human.

,,What a beautiful sight to awake to, isn’t it?”, Katrina said.

,,Beautiful as a knife.”

,,What do you mean?”

,,Its beautiful in its danger. I never understood why you Federates look up to the sky and start to dream. I see only light years for light years of vacuum. Emptiness except for a few flames of hellish nuclear fusion, the few habitable worlds so far away that we literally have to bend reality itself to move from one to the other. Light years of space you will die instantly without a thin wall of metal and artificial compounds. Light years without anything you could survive with. Its death.”

Did she saw space like this since she had been stranded and almost starved for half an year in it? Or had she always thought this way, had been aware of the silliness of crossing this ocean of vastness with only a thin hull of metal and horribly powerful physical reactions around you?

,,I think we always just thought of the things between this emptiness.”

,,I think that seperates us. You are dreamers.”

,,But didn’t you dream of uniting your Houses?”

,,I don’t know if this is comparable.”

She shifted. She could still feel the imprint of her hands and lips and teeth on her, smell their mixed scent. A shudder ran trough her at the memories of the previous night, and feeling L’Rells naked body pressed against her back suddenly let tension upsurge again. She signed and pressed herself closer against L’Rell, moved slightly to feel the form of the others body graze against hers.

She heard L’Rell sign too, her embrace became tighter and her hands shifted higher up her body. Her hot breath ghosted over her neck, then her lips followed and her tongue danced over her skin. As she gasped, L’Rell took her breasts in her hands and started to play with them.

Katrina squirmed in her embrace and rubbed her body against her, finally grasped for her and touched her leg, stroking and kneading all of her she was able to reach.

At some point, she turned in her embrace and kissed her, their hands roaming over the others body, hips moving.

They knew what touches the other would like and the basics of how they would respond this time, so that it was lesser risky, but possibly more intimate this time. Touching and being touched, giving and taking, cherishing and being cherished.

She could feel L’Rells fear of leaving her home for maybe forever in the way she pressed her body against Katrinas, in the way she clung to her back, burring her fingers in her flesh.

And she realized that there was a desperation in her touches, too, how she buried her face in L’Rells neck and worked to leave a mark on her, the fast, harsh movements of her hand, and how everything beside the sensation of her skin and touch and her shuddering body seemed to move far away, as if it would just exist in another reality.

It felt so natural.

After they were finished, they cleaned themselves as good as it was possible, silently ate breakfast and then went to their consoles.

 

,,What standard time is it for your people? Is there any time where it might me easier to cross the border? A night shift or something similar? In what kind of shifts do your ships operate?”

,,You still don’t understand, Admiral. You still see us too much like your Federation.”

She raised an eyebrow.

,,We are not an united people. A standard shift system, or standard time does not exist for us. Every house has their own standards, fitting for their territories mayor planet, or most important stronghold. There are three shifts, four shifts or two shifts systems. And time synchronized with their respective home.”

,,So you mean there isn’t any particularly advantageous  time?”

,,I can search our database when night shift is for most houses. But even then it will be more luck than anything else.”

 

They crossed the border at what was early morning on their board time.

,,Detecting a few fast movers on patrol at 58 ° to 83, but they are moving away from us and we are nearly out of their sensor rage. A frigate is on a curse to us, though.”, Katrina breathed out slowly and pushed the fear and panicked tangledness of her thoughts away like she had learned to do so many years ago before space battles. Her breath wouldn’t stop racing nevertheless, the knowledge that this could very well be her last fight lurking at the edge of her consciousness the whole time.  Yep, she definitely was out of practice.

,,Do they hail?”

,,No.”

,,Good. That gives us time.”

,,Shall I take the sensors and navigation, you control weapons, deflectors and communication?”

,,Yes. Who commands?”

That was a though question. But L’Rell had more practice with space battles lately, and she knew more about her peoples fighting style. As much as Katrina hated the thought of being her subordinate, it was the best decision.

,,Good.”, L’Rell said. And then: ,,I hail them now.”

Quietness that lasted several painfully heavy heart beats and thoughts of how they could finally be killed by the border patrol.

,,Third Commander Sothor of House Kol, Light Frigate Keruqok here.”, the voice sounded slightly sleepy and bored, like the commanding Lieutenant of the night shift. Good. Her sentence meaning was translated by Katrinas Rihannsu space suit headpiece. She pushed the control panel on her arm again, yes, air supply still worked. It was silly, maybe, but it seemed at least a little bit less letal to pick a fight with a much bigger ship if she at least wouldn’t imidiately die at a hull breach. 

,,Battle Deck Commander Lursa of the House D’Gor from the J’nat. We were separated from our mother ship in a battle.”, L’Rell explained.

Now everything depended on if they would manage to get over the border before the other ship would be able to see them on their near-range sensors. They could maybe pass as a ordinary fast mover, but closer up the signature of their hull and their warp drive would definitely look to antiquaited to fit to any ship but the Sarcophagus ship, and there was no explaination how one of their fast movers would end up so far away from its mother ship other than carrying the two searched criminals they were. Not even to mention her own human life sings. Even if Sothor didn’t came to that conclusion, they would be suspicious.

,,They’re coming closer.”, Katrina said after L’Rell had closed the channel, ,,But we could be still fast enough.”

A second later, Sothor hailed them again.

,,I didn’t knew that the J’nat was in this sector, and I didn’t heard that they were missing a fast mover.”

,,They must believe we are dead. Pretty chaotic situation, space debris everywhere. Vulcans, that filthy pack. You know how they are, aren’t you?”

,,Oh yes.”, Sothors abasement barely disguised her fear, ,,You can sent us your status, so that we can repair your ship faster.”

Only an astronomical unit, then they would have it. The Keruqok came closer and closer.

,,They damaged most of our comm systems too.”, L’Rell excused the missing pictures.

,,A few thousand kilometers, and we are in their visual sensor rage.”, Katrina warned.

A muscle in L’Rells jaw twitched.  Katrina could totally understand her fear, they would only be fast enough if they would go on warp. But no ship that didn’t belonged to the enemy would do that here, and the frigate outran them.

,,Then just report us your status trough the audio channel.”

They came even closer, Katrina could already make out most of the Keruqoks shape and where its engines and weapon systems were. Only a little distance… Only a bit further… She wished she could pray to an god so that they could maybe let the other ship be just slow enough for them to not end up in their near distance sensor rage. And then the moment in which they could have possibly escaped was over.

,,We’re within their sensor rage.”

,,Go!”

To late.

,,The human captative and L’Rell, the traitor! See you in Grethor, you honorless scum!”

,,Get as close to them as possible!”, L’Rell shouted. 

Katrinas pulled velocity up to maximum. The stars fell away, and the hostile ship blew up from an tiny point of light to a wall of dark metal in hardly more than a second. Only in the last moment she ripped the controls down, steered  up hard. She was pushed harshly into her seat.

A green flash, and a phaser missed them only barely.

L’Rell responed with a salve of flashing green plasma on her own. A flash of light, and they were absorbed by the Keruqoks shields.

Katrina flew a sharp curve around the other ship to make them harder to hit. Some components glowed up. With an sudden change of direction, she managed to escape the second salve, but came far to close to the hull for her liking. Shit, she wasn’t a pilot, she hadn’t done this herself since far to long.

,,In what distance to the ship are their shields?”

,,I don’t know!”

,,Oh Fuck!”, shit, hopefully she wouldn’t avert a phaser salve just to shatter on the shields. She could only guess the distance to the ships hull from where L’Rells shots had been absorbed, but guessing distances per eye absolutely wasn’t that reliable.

Dark metal rushed away under them, it looked too large to be a thing made by actual mortal people.

,,Watch out! Turn left!”, L’Rell shouted. Not even a second later another shot missed them only for a few meters. ,,Their weapons can reach us far to easy at this point! There, it might be harder.”

Katrina looked behind them and saw the weapon machination. Yes, even with her limited technical understanding it looked like the ankle of it made it hard for it the be calibrated to their position. But she was sure that there were ways to turn it more fitting for a close-distance fight. They couldn’t outmaneuver them forever.

Just as if to agree to that thought, another salve flashed up at her right, and she couldn’t react fast enough. A harsh thrust that made the seat belts cut into her shoulders, as their shields could only hardly hold the attack.

Katrina let the ship fly spirals to make them harder to hit. Stars and spaceship hull blurred into an black-metallic grey channel that seemed to devour them. L’Rell shot randomly on everything in her reach. Most was absorbed in a short flashing up of the shields. She continued, growling.

Another dodge, another shot far to close to them. Finally, the shields seemed to become weaker; a larger plain of it light up as their shots shattered on it.

,,Only a bit more. On the exactly same place.”

,,Hard to do if you fly like this.”

,,I try to escape their shots!”

And then, something hit them. In the absolutely worst ankle possible. Right in the middle, like a textbook example of how to shot a fast mover. The shield collapsed immediately, almost to fast to even realize it. In one moment, they were sitting in their cockpit and piloting and controlling their weapons. In the next, there was no hull anymore between them and the stars. Only their seats and then space.

,,Ooooh shit! Shit. Oh shit!”, Katrina heard her own voice scream, panicked and utterly confused. A barking shout, L’Rell was just as shocked as she was.

Her own breathing, to loud and flat over the communication.

At least L’Rell had managed to continue shooting, and their momentum carried them further.

Finally, Katrina recovered from the shock and was able to think again. They had to make their way to Federation border. Fastly. But as soon as they brought more distance between them and the frigate, they would been in perfect firing rage, loosing their only advantage. And without the hull, how could they been protected in any way?

,,How can we lure them onto Federation space without being shot?”, L’Rell seemed to have the same thought. And then, Katrina had an idea. An not exactly promising idea, but better than nothing.

,,Where is the area next to our destination that is hard to reach with their weapons?”

,,There!”, L’Rell pointed to the peak of the outer wing.

,,You fire, I steer.”

Another shot, Katrina managed to doge it, she flow to low and managed to turn upwards in the last moment, a second later one of L’Rells shots burst on the shields just a few meters below where she almost had headed. And then, she was over the wing. As she had planed the ship moved to be better able to hit them. They rushed towards a poorer protected part of the ship, and it followed again. But it were only tiny steps towards federation space. And how much longer would they be able to keep up this game?

Dodging, spiraling out of the way and flying curves, fleeing and being followed. Time fractured to moments between shots, to distance they would still have to made. It took to long. Far to long.

And then, something huge crept into their visual field, white metal shining in the light of the stars and the glowing of the shields.

She heard L’Rell mumble something flat and scared.

The wall of shining metal moved fully over them, so huge that it blocked out the stars almost fully. A fortress.

,,Starfleet.”, Katrina said.

 

The frigate turned off. Just a moment later, Katrina opened a channel to the Starfleet vessel , and a they were beamed on bord.

Phasers pointed at her face. She felt L’Rell tense beside her, ducking in her fighting stance, her breath flat from suppressed fear. She could totally understand her. Even she was afraid, and this were her own people – or at least should be.

They looked strange, their noses to smooth, their foreheads to low and flat. Alien, almost.

She took of her helmet, and they relaxed a bit.

But before she could explain anything, security members sprang forward and grabbed L’Rell. She managed to throw one of them across the room, but two other were in her place in an instance and one pointed a phaser at her. She stopped to fight back. They pulled her towards the door.

Katrina heard herself scream: ,,Treat her well. Don’t hurt her. Heaven, please don’t hurt her!” as if this would be necessary, as if her people were the ones hurting others, as if Starfleet would be the true enemy.

Then, L’Rell was out of her sight, and Katrina felt strangely lonely, missing. She could almost physically feel her absence after all these days of being right beside her in their fast mover.

Somebody said something.

“Excuse me?”, how could she be beside her just like in the last weeks, and then in one moment not anymore?

“You know this Klingon the best. Would you accept to write her psychological evaluation.”

It sounded so surreal.

“Find… find somebody else to do that. I’m”, she heard herself gulp, “emotionally compromised.”

 

L’Rell didn’t even turn her head as the brigs doors opened. The blue of the force field turned her greyish brown skin to blue, made her look cold and preserved, like something in a museum.

“I’m sorry.”

As she heard Katrinas voice, she did turn. Her eyes catched her face, then she looked down immediately to hide the shimmer of pain inside them. Saying “I’m sorry” was not nearly enough, but what else could she do? Despite everything she knew L’Rell had done, she felt that she didn’t deserved this. It hurt.

“But I knew you had some goal in Federation space, and I can’t trust you not to harm my people as a whole in turn. I’m sorry. But for the good of my people, I had to.”

L’Rell looked up slowly.

“I would have lost all my respect for you if you hadn’t.”, her voice sounded so vulnerable and yet so tender, “I already expected something like this, and I thought hard about what to do in this case. You had no other choice. No honorable, at least.”

Katrina wanted to repeat that she was sorry, but it would have been patetic. And so she laid her hand on the force field, felt it rustle and vibrate underneath her fingers, instead of the last kiss, or at least last touch, she wished to give her. She hoped L’Rell understood. Would she ever have a chance to touch her again?

“I don’t take back what I said. I am relieved to know you. You made me realize that your people can have honor indeed.”

Katrina breathed in deeply, somehow managed to keep the pain from escaping into her voice: “Thank you. I found compassion, understanding… friendship in you, and if this is possible, it is possible to find a solution for this conflict.” L’Rell tilted her head as if she wanted to say “You naïve federation people”. But then she smiled. Tender. Proudly. And Katrina continued: “You made me realize that it is possible to end this war.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No happy end for this story. But then, with this setup and in this timeframe it would have simply not been possible.
> 
> I like to imagine that everything got more or less its canounical curse… somehow after that. So they would be able to meet again on more friendly terms when the war is over.
> 
> Also, I am not even really sure what ship this is at the end. The Discovery, or just an random Federation ship? I have no idea
> 
> Whoa, writing this was such a ride and the first longer work I did since ages, and I am so glad and proud to finally have it finished

**Author's Note:**

> An idea I first had after "Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum", but didn't managed to finish for a long time after. 
> 
> Uploads every Saturday at the latest at 6:00 pm european standard time.


End file.
